All the wrong parts in all the right places
For many years now, I’ve prided myself on not looking away from the screen during even the most visceral of horrors. I’ve seen incisions made with scalpels, fluids leak from inhuman orifices, and needles go where no needle should, and even when it gets a stomach-churning reaction out of me, I’m usually enjoying myself.
Cronenbergs’ 2022 film Crimes of the Future tested my limits, but after handling that, I didn’t think anything could faze me. Yet here we are. I made sure to time my lunch so that I wasn’t full when writing this review. Maybe that’s an overreaction, but I’d rather be prepared, unlike my mindset going into The Substance.
All I knew about this movie were the lead actors and the fact that it was a horror. I love a good scare, but I was not expected to leave the cinema feeling as rattled as I did. During this movie’s nearly two-and-a-half hour runtime, I experienced some of the most relentless and visceral visual imagery I have ever seen in my life.
And I loved it.
Style and Substance
When Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), host of a television aerobics show, is fired on her fiftieth birthday, she’s given the chance to take a black-market drug known only as ‘The Substance’—a drug that replicates a version of her younger self (Margaret Qualley). The Substance comes with strict rules though, and the horrific side-effect of violating them threaten to upend Elisabeth’s life.
There’s a lot to commend about The Substance, but let’s start with Demi Moore. With very little dialogue, Moore is able to sell the anger simmering beneath her stoic demeanour that leads to her choosing to take an unknown drug in order to recapture her youth. It’s one of those obvious ‘dumb horror movie’ decisions that you just know you’d never make, but the writing and Moore’s acting totally sells it.
As the movie continues, and the side-effects of the drug become apparent, Moore is also challenged to act under a heavy number of prosthetics and, honestly, it’s just amazing to watch. Her intensity and anguish is spine-tingling. Margaret Qualley is similarly able to convey the necessary spark of cruelty and recklessness that’s present in her character without much dialogue.
Friend of the Show
Dennis Quaid as Harvey, Elisabeth’s boss, is also beastly. He doesn’t have much screentime, but when he’s present, he’s wonderfully horrendous to watch. Putting aside deeper discussions of Quaid’s politics, let’s just say that he comes preloaded with a certain distastefulness that the movie certainly capitalises on.
Indeed, Harvey and his merry band of network executives challenge us to reckon with the deeper themes of the male gaze and the casual objectification of women that The Substance is tackling. Already, I’ve seen plenty of posts on social media drooling over how attractive Moore and Qualley are in this movie. I can’t help but cringe at them.
If your main takeaway from this stunning movie is ‘Margaret Qualley sure is hot!’ then you have failed to recognise what this movie is saying about you. The movie is challenging, though. Some might be put off by its length, but that long runtime allows it to languish in the moments where Elisabeth successfully enjoys her newfound youth.
The Substance wants to make you envious of her before ripping it all away and exposing Elisabeth’s quest for eternal beauty as the zero-sum game that it is.
“You Are One”
Despite fantastic performances and graceful explorations of themes of identity, aging, and the pressurising effects of the patriarchy on women to perform specific kinds of femininity, most will come out of The Substance raving primarily about the body horror aspects of the movie.
This is not an easy movie to watch. As I said, I usually have a pretty good stomach for horror, but there was a moment during this movie where I involuntarily flinched away from the screen, shutting my eyes to what was happening. This quite literally has never happened to me before.
The moment in question wasn’t even the ‘grossest’ or ‘worst’ thing to happen during the movie, but it occurred during one of its most relentless sequences. My brain was tapping the mat, desperate for a release from the high tension and genuinely disturbing visuals.
Say Yes to Drugs
Once The Substance gets the (eye)ball rolling, it refuses to ease up. It can’t. It achieves one of my favourite story-telling techniques of hitting a climax that just keeps going—both in terms of its plot and its violations of nature. It is a dizzying, breathless, once-in-a-decade kind of film experience that I never want to see ever again in my life.
The only reason you shouldn’t see this movie is if you have a serious issue with body horror. If you’re a fan, or just have no strong feelings on the trope, The Substance is sure to be one of your most memorable film experiences of the year.
Just make sure to watch it with an empty stomach, and you should be fine.
***
Thanks for reading my review. If you liked it, consider buying me a cup of coffee at https://ko-fi.com/kieranobrien
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