In the intensely audacious new body horror film, The Substance, the real-world horrors of self hatred, the sexualization of women’s bodies, and how a misogynistic culture forces women to question their physical worth, take center stage. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat (2017’s effective thriller, Revenge), this is an unrestrained work that damns expectations and a film that refuses to go softly into the good night of cinematic convention.

Demi Moore gives the performance of her career as she accepts director Fargeat’s extreme challenges from scene to scene. Powering headfirst into the deepest character she has ever played, the actress is extraordinary as a woman whose already fragile self-image has been shattered by the unholy male-dominated gaze of the entertainment industry. Since debuting in the films of the 1980s, Demi Moore has lived the ups and downs of the Hollywood system and knows the tribulations of her character very well. The role of Elisabeth Sparkle gives Moore her All About Eve, albeit one that is splattered in gore.

Sparkle is the biggest name in the celebrity aerobics game. She has been the host of a successful television aerobics show for years. A former actress with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Elizabeth is now facing the other side of 50 and finds herself “aging out”; an ugly and offensive phrase that speaks to the point of the film. 

The seedier, chauvinistic side of “The Magic Factory” comes in the form of Elisabeth’s boss and head of the station, the aptly named Harvey (Dennis Quaid at his over-the-top slimiest). Harvey wants a younger host for him and his audience to ogle. In Hollywood, it isn’t about the product, but the seductive presentation that will satisfy the carnal desires of men. Harvey gives Elisabeth her walking papers on her birthday. Insult and injury with a smile, wrapped in an “F-You” bow. Her firing (and the reasons for it) puts Elisabeth at odds with her age and self-image and leads her down the darkest path imaginable.

A young, good looking, hospital worker gives Elisabeth a phone number and urges her to seek out something called “The Substance”, claiming that it changed his life. The program promises a whole new you. While that sounds like just what Elisabeth needs at this low point in her career, she comes to find out that “a whole new you” is quite literal. After taking the green slime serum, another, younger, form of herself hatches out of her back. Sue (Margaret Qualley) is born. It is promised that Sue will be a “better” version of Elisabeth. This is to say, Sue will be the version that lecherous eyes will prefer to see. 

Elisabeth is still Sue, and Sue is Elisabeth. As the mysterious voice on the other end of the phone must continue to remind her, “You are one.” Another warning is that Elisabeth must remember to switch bodies every seven days, or there will be dangerous physical consequences. Of course, this balance is fractured once Sue discovers the increasing fame and acceptance. As Sue becomes a more powerful force, the two-that-are-one battle for dominance. 

Coralie Fargeat has a lot to say in this vicious, Jekyll and Hyde, feminist satire for the modern age. Negative body image is perpetuated by Hollywood marketing standards and is a cause for so much unneeded plastic surgery on both men and women. Nips and tucks are understandable, but women over 40 are given the signal that the entertainment industry needs smooth skin and tight bodies. It is Elisabeth who becomes a victim to this way of thinking, leading her to the program.

Amongst all of the extreme grotesqueries, Demi Moore’s grounded performance finds the humanity and emotion in Fargeat’s screenplay. As Elisabeth injects herself with the green liquid and her other self tears out of her back, it becomes a macabre manifestation of how many women succumb to the unbearable pressure of public image, destroying their bodies in the process. 

As Elisabeth becomes more reclusive and her aging becomes more drastic, the visual betrayal of her two selves takes a different approach. Elisabeth often stands naked in front of her bathroom mirror. She is a beautiful woman, but is now beaten down by the unattainable standards set by those who exist in the City of Angels. Her dwindling self worth is written in the sadness on her face. Benjamin Kracun’s camera paints Elisabeth’s time alone in darker hues and a quieter visual tone. Qualley is filmed in a more glistening light, the camera zooming around her in action film styled pans and close framing; actively presenting her as a sexualized fantasy.

Fargeat’s intentions are clear, as she shows how one can be sexualized to the extreme. It is true that the director’s vision veers into the very exploitative style that she is attacking. Over-saturating the audience with extreme closeups of every inch of Sue (both clothed and fully nude), borders on exploitation. For many viewers, it will be too much. This is a film where Fargeat’s approach will make many uncomfortable and infuriate the rest. As she is a European filmmaker, Coralie Fargeat is more comfortable with nudity on film. With The Substance, she is pointing a finger at the sexualization of women everywhere and isn’t afraid (nor are her two leads) to go all in. The extreme nudity within this picture has purpose, but one cannot argue with those who feel otherwise. 

As the mental states of both Elisabeth and Sue slide further into the abyss, Fargeat and her FX team saturate the film with some incredibly designed moments of gore. The already strange aura moves into a territory that is unsettlingly gruesome, as the oozing body-goo, buckets of blood, and mutant-like abominations fill the screen. The film elicits the type of reaction found in the disturbingly morbid depths of Anderzej Kulowsi’s 1981 cult classic, Possession. 

By the time The Substance reaches its daring and ultra-bizarre climax, genre fans will find comparisons to the bizarre 80’s gore classic, Society. Fargeat has crafted an ending so outlandish and freakishly surreal, even those who wish to forget the film will never forget its finale.

Painting her film with a Kubrickian brush splattered with Cronenberg carnage, The Substance, is a bold work that will shock, anger, and divide audiences. The director has something potent to say about fame, age, and how one values what is reflected in the mirror. One may not like how she does it, but audiences who settle in for this unique experience will see something daring and original.

The Substance

Written and Directed by Coralie Fargeat

Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Hugh Diego Garcia

R, 140 Minutes, Working Title Films, Blacksmith