“The Substance” Review
Demi Moore takes a mysterious drug to stay on top in the entertainment world in “The Substance”, one of a very few horror films be nominated for the top prize at the Academy Awards.
While horror fans are an incredibly diverse group of human beings with wildly different opinions on subgenres and the many eras of scary cinema, one universal truth has emerged recently: “The Substance” fucking rocks. Shockingly, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thought so too because “The Substance” has become the seventh horror film in history nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. With so much prestige behind this film, including a Best Original Screenplay win at the Cannes Film Festival, it might be easy to assume that this allegorical horror satire could feel mundane but that is not the case with Coralie Fargeat’s mind-melting display of creative storytelling and squirm-inducing body horror.
Set in the glitz of Hollywood, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a once-popular superstar who loses her iconic status when her producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) boots her from her Jane Fonda-like aerobics show. Unable to handle her loss and frustrated with the double-standards of the entertainment industry, Elizabeth turns to a black market drug known as The Substance which causes her to split and create a younger version of herself named Sue (Margaret Qualley). Now, the rules are simple. Each body can hold consciousness for a week while the other lies dormant and they must switch every seven days with no exception. However, when the balance is not respected, a horrifying descent is what is in store for both parties.
You can definitely make the connection between “The Substance” and other films like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, “All About Eve” and “Babygirl”, this film takes everything to such a glorious extreme that it creates something so original and rapidly iconic. The environment Fargeat creates is distinctly satirical with everyone, especially Harvey, being very straight-to-the-punch with their dialogue. Fargeat knows that the audience has seen many accomplished and subtle takes on what it means to be a woman aging in the entertainment industry and wants to do something different and far more memorable with her story. That’s why I think “The Substance” has really caught on. It’s because of the truly monumental manner in which Fargeat wanted to melt the minds of her audience and succeeded with flying colors.
Nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars (another rarity for a horror film), Demi Moore is outstanding as Elizabeth Sparkle. From the get-go, you understand her pain and her interest in The Substance with mental destruction to come being tragically intriguing. From her physicality amid an ever-changing cast of prosthetics and make-up adjustments to the changes in her mental state, Demi Moore has you in her grip. As someone who has been in show business a long time and has, no doubt, seen the same kind of struggles as Elizabeth, Moore brings the kind of energy to this performance that can only come from churning up frustration at the dark side of the industry and finally being allowed to set it free.
Margaret Qualley is also outstanding as Sue and, along with Moore, give their characters a strong level of cohesion while also forming distinct personalities. While they are technically the same person with a trading consciousness, Sue is a lot more outgoing and relishes the attention her youth is getting as anyone would. But like a modern Icarus, her taste of new fame causes her to break the balance as does her loathing of Elizabeth and what Sue perceives to be a waste of Elizabeth’s use of her time. The longer they exist, the more the harm each other with both parties being pushed to further extremes until what used to be one is now drifting in opposite directions with chaotic results.
The effects used to bring this story to life are nothing short of remarkable and rival pretty much all of the greatest special-effects make-up and prosthetic designs in cinematic history. From “Alien” to “The Thing” to “An American Werewolf in London” to anything by Guillermo del Toro and David Cronenberg, “The Substance” needs to be mentioned in the first breath whenever great make-up in horror is mentioned. It’s not just that it’s gross (although it very much is), it’s creative and immediately has your attention. When CGI has taken some of the wonder away from these kinds of transformations, the practical effects of “The Substance” remind us as an audience just how unnerving these kinds of illusions can be.
Thematically, “The Substance” is rich and full of truly outstanding ideas. The set-up and world that Elizabeth Sparkle inhabits may be simple in its satire but she is not. This is a complex character who only grows more so when Sue is introduced and the dynamic between the two is explored. There have been many stories about mentors conditioning their students into successors to varying results of happiness for the original but what do you do when both parties are technically the same person? Since Elizabeth and Sue can’t even talk to each other and, instead, are forced to deal with the repercussions of how one used their weekly cycle, it only heightens their animosity which can only lead to a fiery climax.
Tragic, gory, gross, engaging and full of so much love for horror, “The Substance” takes the classic story of messing with nature and twists it on its head after throwing it through a plate-glass window. Horror has often been used to showcase strong points-of-view of societal issues but so rarely does it feel so unique and so universally praised. “The Substance” appears to have found the formula and, fortunately, I think it’s something that cannot be replicated outside the lab.
