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After Revenge, Coralie Fargeat had cemented herself as one of the most exciting new voices in the horror genre with a very blunt approach to the familiar rape-and-revenge narrative. Seven years later, she returns with a vastly different sort of horror film in The Substance – a body horror movie that indulges in excessive gore to the point you can’t find yourself looking away. Perhaps that might be the most fitting way to approach a horror movie about high beauty standards as they’re continuously imposed on women in film and television who appear on the screen, to ridiculously unhealthy degrees. That’s only one layer though, in unveiling what makes The Substance among the best horror films in recent memory, and just a great time all around.

The Substance stars Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a popular actress hosting an aerobics television show who is unceremoniously let go on her fiftieth birthday. After being told by a sleazy studio executive fittingly named Harvey (Dennis Quaid) that her age doesn’t make her desirable to male audiences, she takes interest in a black market drug simply called “the Substance.” The usage of the Substance would allow Elisabeth to turn into a younger version of herself going by the name Sue (Margaret Qualley). But because these two personalities are part of the same vessel, horrifying side effects to this drug are soon unleashed.

The Substance is not going for subtlety at all. But Coralie Fargeat isn’t interested in such, because a subtle approach would not allow for Fargeat to unleash the chaos that she sets forth. It speaks to the place in life where The Substance was born from: it’s a movie built entirely from self-hatred that stems from ridiculously high beauty standards that are often imposed on women by men. As such, it also gives us the perfect gateway into one of the most unhinged body horror films in recent memory, as these alterations that one takes upon for themselves manifest upon the self akin to bodily mutilation.

Make no mistake, you can also expect that The Substance will gross you out from beginning to end. But oddly enough, even the goriest moments in the movie don’t come close to being the most disgusting things that you’ll be seeing in this movie. Coralie Fargeat is doing everything that she can in order to incite a feeling of disgust from you the moment when the movie starts, with how we’re introduced to Dennis Quaid’s Harvey over dinner, with close-up shots of himself eating shrimp and the crunching sounds indulging in that same grossness. But even then, it’s hammering down a point that these people are the ones who decide what we should consider “attractive” or not, even to the point of making us feel gross the moment when Elisabeth’s split personality appears in the form of Margaret Qualley’s Sue.

Yet that might just as well be the perfect response to the higher powers that supposedly decide these standards for most audiences. Something that supposedly might seem attractive to our own eyes will at the very least stem from some sort of bodily harm, but as long as it catches us – that’s all that matters as long as sleazy studio executives are satisfied. But in our minds, we can’t help but still see a very beautiful woman on the screen in Demi Moore’s presence. Not only is she incredible in this movie but we’re already feeling the same sort of pains that she’s putting herself through as her own vessel moves between the bodies of both an older Elisabeth and the much younger Sue.

But as these two personalities begin to take over the same vessel, Fargeat also presents a very confrontational gaze as we remember that this is Elisabeth’s story first and foremost. Her choice to take “the Substance” is one that had been motivated by her own desire to keep doing what she loves most. And the more the movie goes on, the balance between Elisabeth and Sue is threatened further: all exacerbated by Harvey’s immediate liking of Sue and her attractive body from the get go. Sue is treated very lovingly by everyone else, Elisabeth is just seen as disposable because of her age – and constantly looked down upon by people around herself. To say that The Substance is a film born out of self-hatred is one thing, but seeing how it manifests here only further cements itself in your mind as it goes on.

That also shows itself to be the perfect gateway for Coralie Fargeat to take pleasure in the grotesque. It becomes evident that there’s no real balance between the vessels of Elisabeth and Sue, and what happens from here on just becomes even more horrifying. Taking inspiration from the body horror films of David Cronenberg and John Carpenter, The Substance turns towards becoming completely monstrous and horrifying, especially as the transformations between Elisabeth and Sue and their fight for dominance begin to result in something horrifying especially for the two of them. It all culminates in one of the goriest moments of any horror movie in recent memory, and it might just as well become among the most glorious at that.

You won’t find many other horror movies quite like The Substance in recent memory; where the film avoids subtlety it always remains so angry and willing to confront the viewers any chance it has. But that might as well be where The Substance works as beautifully as it does, especially as this is a movie all about the ways in which imposed beauty standards continually eat away at the human body at every minute. So much so, that even conventionally attractive faces would look back at themselves in a wholly self-conscious manner, whether they’re old or young. And that just happens to be only where all the fun starts.

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Watch the trailer right here.

All images via MUBI.

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Directed by Coralie Fargeat
Screenplay by Coralie Fargeat
Produced by Coralie Fargeat, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid
Premiere Date: May 19, 2024 (Cannes)
Running Time: 140 minutes