The Substance is the most disgusting film I have ever seen, as a truly gruesome movie that takes body horror to the extreme.
With a vomited-up breast and buckets of blood and slimy, naked flesh – to give but a hint of what’s in store – it’s been grabbing headlines since its premiere at Cannes back in May.
It also provides a bold and original big-screen comeback for Hollywood star Demi Moore.
She bares all, in more ways than one, in a vulnerable and exposing performance – and while her devastating turn powers the heart of the film, a last-minute fumble at The Substance’s climax left me uncomfortable and questioning its message.
Nevertheless, at Cannes it won a prize for its screenplay, and was lauded by gleefully grossed-out critics as ‘demented’, ‘an instant classic’ and ‘the most bats**tf**kinginsane movie of the last 20 years’.
I would agree with most of the above as Coralie Fargeat’s film really enjoys spattering the audience with blood, gore and organs as it embraces being a literal body horror.
It’s almost hard to describe how truly graphic it is, so whatever you expect from my descriptions – brace yourself for worse.
The Substance follows fading A-list actress Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) who, after being axed from her exercise segment on a morning show by Dennis Quaid’s hideous TV exec Harvey, takes an experimental substance that ‘generates a new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect, you’.
This new, shiny version of Elisabeth, played by Margaret Qualley, then bursts forth from Moore’s body in just the start of the movie’s descent into monstrous grotesqueness.
The pace is easily driven along by the massive and tawdry secret both must hide as they attempt to deceive the public – and themselves – and continue glossy Hollywood lives, one week each at a time.
For that’s the rule neither must break, lest they face truly stomach-churning consequences. In fact, the finish of the film becomes genuinely so nauseating that it could drive fans to throw up, faint or shocked laughter – or even a combination of all three.
Elisabeth and Sue (what Qualley’s character dubs herself) may enjoy separate lives and bodies, but they are connected by Elisabeth as ‘the matrix’ and must ‘stabilise’ every day by injecting spinal fluid. While one is out living their life, the other is locked away in the bathroom like a living – if comatose – version of Dorian Gray’s portrait.
Of course it is emphasised that they must never go beyond seven days each out in the world, and so of course they inevitably do as each gets more frustrated by the other’s decisions. And hell hath no fury like a woman feeling scorned by herself apparently, if their viciously violent and bloodthirsty fight across Elisabeth’s apartment is anything to go by.
Fargeat revels in The Substance’s brightly coloured glamour which she merrily contrasts with the feral behaviour in which her two leading ladies engage – or more accurately by the end, slug it out. She also enjoys depicting the unexpected and building the tension of what you know is inevitably coming from the first time Elisabeth jabs herself with a needle.
However, even with that anticipation, the third act unveils a truly unpredictable creature of limbs, teeth, slime and flesh – a nightmarishly impressive creation of the special effects department that truly embraces the high-camp drama and ridiculousness of this horror film.
This is when the boob vomiting comes in, but do stay for the blood hosings and explosions of body matter too!
The Substance truly serves the body horror fanbase who want to be entertained and grossed out by its descent into disgustingness.
However, by the movie’s outrageous climax, it does feel uncomfortable to laugh at a woman trying to conform to society’s ideals of perfection – namely beauty, thinness, and youth.
The Substance has been hailed as a feminist film that skewers the pressure women are put under to be cosmetically perfect.
But for me, it misses that mark slightly and doesn’t feel like it’s adding anything groundbreaking to that discussion.
In terms of repulsiveness though, it’s an impressive effort from Fargeat and Moore, bringing body horror to mainstream audiences.
The Substance is out in UK cinemas today.
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