The Substance(2024)(Review) - Gruesome Gazette

As most of you know by now, I’m a massive fan of the New French Extremity movement. And even though it technically concluded years ago, we still have transgressive French filmmakers who are dipping their toes into realms of intensity and anger that still resonate just as strongly today. While today’s topic is certainly not an extremity film, it does have particular ingredients in common with them. Coralie Fargeat has only presented us with two feature films and a handful of short films at this point, but has already forced her way into the contemporary horror conversation. Today we are taking a look at her newest body of work, ‘The Substance’.

Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle – a fading celebrity whose age limits her opportunities in the world of Hollywood. She has won awards in the past, and the film literally begins with her getting a star on the Walk of Fame, but by the time the story picks up she has already become a niche celebrity who pays her bills by filming aerobics videos. When the owner of the network (Dennis Quaid playing an on-the-nose Harvey Weinstein-esque villain) has a chat with her, he says she’s being replaced because they need someone young and sexy. Desperate and depressed, she learns of a secret black market drug called “the substance” which is advertised as a way to ‘create a younger, sexier, better you’. After careful consideration, she’ll learn that her choices have heavy consequences, and specific rules that must be followed with no exception.

This movie is on a whole other level. The story is immersive, it’s clever, and it gives us some of the most intense body horror of the year. I had no idea where we ultimately were going to end up, and the ending is an absolute showstopper that had me leaning forward in my seat with my hands on my face.. and as the credits rolled and the audience left the theater, it was the first time in a long time that random strangers all started talking with each other about what we had experienced.

On top of the writing and special effects though, this movie just has so much going on. Stylistically, it looks like a Stanley Kubrick film combined with a Darren Aronofsky film (I straight up called it ‘Requiem for a Dream’ meets ‘Possessor’) and has the most metal ending I’ve seen in a horror film since ‘Mandy’. It has a lot of Cronenberg going on in it, as well as some fantastic music, beautiful color schemes and wardrobes, and intense dance numbers at part. And the acting? Fucking fantastic. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are both fearless and vicious, going places you would not have expected. And there’s this very clever thing going on where whenever Dennis Quaid is on screen, we pretty much get a fish-eyed lens shot of him that makes his disgusting character even more cartoonish. It’s a way to make such serious, dark content almost a parody. Which brings me to the next point…

This film is confident with what it’s doing. It blends pitch-black humor, disgusting gore, sincere tragedy, and beautiful visuals to create an experience that really needs to be seen to be understood. And I have not even begun to cover what actually happens in the film… that will be a spoilerific conversation for some other time. It has a message that’s as subtle as a sledgehammer, but it’s an important one told in a particular voice that only a female filmmaker could really achieve. It feels earnest in every way, feeling like a cathartic exercise in expectations, body dismorphia, and the desire to be desired.

Go see this movie. It melted my fucking face off. Come for the promise of a film that’s never boring, stay for the ‘Space Odyssey’ style camera shots that accompany some of the most intense, in-your-face shots of the year.

5/5
“The Substance” is currently playing in select theaters, and coming to VOD services on October 29th.

‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra