Skip the snacks before, during and/or after The Substance (now on Mubi, as well as VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), which is one of the most hyperbolically disgusting movies ever made. It’s sickening. I was beyond disturbed. It ruined my week. It’s unforgettable. It’s f—ing GREAT. Coralie Fargeat (2017’s Revenge) writes and directs this nuclear detonation of the male gaze, starring Demi Moore as an aging, fading star who injects the thing in the title of the movie so she can birth a younger, more imminently marketable version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley. A nutso premise, sure. But you ain’t seen nothin’, holmes.
The Gist: Contractors install a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: ELISABETH SPARKLE. Time-lapse photography captures fans flocking to it, admiring it, taking photos. After a while, only pigeons flock to it. Light cracks form in the stone. A fella walks over it and drops his burger, splattering ketchup all over it. Remember that shot. And now, we finally meet Elisabeth (Moore) as she wraps an episode of her tights-and-legwarmers aerobics TV show – then unintentionally overhears her producer, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), slobbering about how she’s too old and needs to be fired. It’s Elisabeth’s 50th birthday. Harvey sits her down for lunch and, while devouring a plate of prawns in a most sloppy and vile fashion, tells her she’s done. Kaputskies. Outta there. On the way home, she spots workers tearing down one of her billboards, then wrecks her car. But she’s OK! FOR NOW AT LEAST. One of the nurses at the hospital slips her a thumb drive emblazoned with a taunting and bold all-caps logo: THE SUBSTANCE, it reads. She gets home and tosses it in the trash.
And then, after thinking – too much – she fishes it out. Calls the number. Gets a numbered key card in the mail. Finds a secret door in an alley and limbos under it. Acquires a package. She gets home and opens it and finds needles and vials and medical tubing and instructions to follow. She follows them. Oh god, does she follow them. And the needles. Oh god, this movie has so many needles in it, needles that puncture skin and inject things and extract things. Anyway, after the first jab, Elisabeth falls, writhing on the bathroom floor. She splits open and out comes Margaret Qualley. This new young perfect beautiful woman will declare herself to be Sue. Just Sue. Don’t worry, Elisabeth isn’t dead; she’s in some kind of comatose state. In order for all of this to work, Elisabeth and Sue will take turns getting a week awake and upright among the living and a week passed out on the bathroom floor. And of course, to maintain it involves some more of those needles.
Also of course, Sue auditions to take Elisabeth’s spot on the aerobics show, and gets it. She’s catnip to the slobbering toms producing this moron show that has no story or sense or even much value as a fitness program; it exists to titillate. It’s even worse with Sue in the lead – it’s more, um, pelvic, rife with porn-worthy shots of thrusting, scantily clad body parts. So we get one week of glam-gorgeous Sue living a fab life, one week of Elisabeth sitting in her apartment discontentedly watching TV and gorging on food. Are they the same person? Or different consciousnesses? Hard to tell. I don’t think they share the same memories. I’m not sure even they know what’s going on here. Suffice to say, Elisabeth isn’t getting much satisfaction out of watching Sue climb to the top, and Sue isn’t too happy giving up her life a week at a time so Elisabeth can flump around being miserable. And you damn well know what reigns around here, don’t you? Yes, chaos, my friends. Chaos reigns, possibly like never before.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: That reminds me, I’m overdue to rewatch The Neon Demon. And also Requiem for a Dream, Titane, Frankenstein, Argento’s Suspiria, Guadagnino’s Suspiria, Lynch’s The Elephant Man, Carpenter’s The Thing and Cronenberg’s The Fly, but I recently rewatched The Lord of the Rings, so at least I’m caught up there.
Performance Worth Watching: There’s no lack of full-roar commitment from Moore or Qualley here. It furthers the upward trajectory of Qualley’s career (see: Sanctuary, Drive-Away Dolls, Kinds of Kindness). But perhaps Moore’s work is more daring and vulnerable, considering the meta-commentary one could ascribe to a story about a middle-aged actress dealing with rejection, envy and self-loathing.
Memorable Dialogue: I’ll just leave this one here. Is it a hint, maybe? “I don’t know what she was thinking.” – Elisabeth
Sex and Skin: Copious full-frontal Moore and Qualley, topless lady dancers, brief male buns.
Our Take: Forty minutes in, The Substance had already gone further than almost any other movie would dare – and there’s still 100 minutes to go. I worried that it might peak too early, but the concern was for naught. Fargeat can go further, and further she indeed goes. Repulsiveness is a feature, not a quirk. And what the film lacks in subtlety, it more than makes up for in provocation via excessive gore and demented psychology, which will work for select audiences, but leave others yearning for something more popcorny. Consider yourself warned. And just to be clear: HEY, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED. Delicate sensibilities and weak stomachs should opt out, you know, yesterday.
Credit Fargeat for not giving a single damn about your comfort level, or lack thereof. She has a point to make about misogyny and sexism, and how they prey upon the female psyche, her story framing the adoration of youth and the impossible quest for physical perfection as compulsive addiction inspiring mad desperation. The film isn’t just a broad satire of Hollywood, but it’s the ideal framework for a distinctive brand of over-the-top, button-pushing, laugh-until-you-can’t horror; the setting functions as an outsized metaphor for what inspires feminine rage. Hollywood is where sexism is amplified to cartoonishly grotesque levels (there’s a reason Quaid’s putrid character is named Harvey), and Fargeat responds with appropriate force, taking inspiration from all the great male body-horror filmmakers and adding a fresh and potent female perspective to the art of shock.
To accomplish her goals, Fargeat uses practical effects – far-beyond-ugly prosthetics, literal gallons of fake blood – and unblinking closeups of needles puncturing veins and spines, of oozing wounds, of eyeballs bulging as characters stare at their imperfections in a mirror, of those knotty and hairy and perfectly human imperfections themselves. She uses the camera as a tool of provocation to ogle body parts until any potential feelings of arousal turn to disgust, and treats food in the same way; when everything we see is an object for consumption, we absolutely should feel discomfort. Deep into the film, eyes, teeth, ears and breasts are desexualized in a manner so off-putting, you can’t help but laugh, loudly and nervously, maybe even to keep from crying.
Our Call: The Substance is nasty nasty nasty. Nasty. But it isn’t without substance either. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.