Editor’s Notice: The next accommodates spoilers for The Substance.Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is without doubt one of the most ambitious horror movies of 2024. Its vibrant and psychedelic visuals are addictive, making it relentless and consuming in each its imagery and its material. Demi Moore leads as Hollywood has-been Elizabeth Sparkle whose profession is starting to fade resulting from her age. Though she is beautiful and clearly in nice bodily form, the producers of her health present need somebody new and, extra importantly, younger to interchange her. After discovering out about a mysterious new treatment, the titular substance, she is given the chance to spend seven days as Elizabeth and 7 days as a youthful, “higher” model of herself often called Sue (Margaret Qualley). Nonetheless, because the pair spend extra time of their respective our bodies, their intentions develop wider aside, they usually start to neglect the golden rule — keep in mind you’re one. The ultimate act is among the bloodiest and most striking body horror the 21st century has seen and explores how far somebody would go to remain related in probably the most excessive methods.
What’s ‘The Substance’ About?
The Substance opens to lethal silence. The display screen is sparse except for a cracked egg within the heart which is injected with a luminous substance. This causes the egg to provide an equivalent yolk. The simplistic Stanley Kubrick-inspired visible permeates the entire film and units the tone that every thing you’re about to see is unnaturally scientific; it’s one twisted oxymoron. The film then introduces Elizabeth Sparkle and remembers her profession by way of her star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame. Via a single unmoving shot, the star is positioned, adored, dismissed, cracked, and defaced with spilled quick meals. Elizabeth is fired from her fashionable aerobics present, as she’s advised by her chauvinistic producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) that they want a brand new, youthful face. On her manner dwelling, Elizabeth will get concerned in a nasty automotive accident. Within the hospital, she is handed a mysterious USB from the younger assistant physician. He tells her she is the proper candidate, and that it’s the smartest thing he has ever executed.
Curiosity will get the higher of her, and when she plugs the laborious drive in, she is met with an abrasive, daring TV advert performed to the compulsive techno soundtrack that also scored the movie’s trailer. After finally feeling her state of affairs is so inescapable, she decides to attempt the substance. The product comes with clear directions; activate solely as soon as, stabilize every day, and swap each seven days. After injecting herself, the primary piece of physique horror ensues as Elizabeth is pressured to beginning her youthful duplicate; it’s fetal and sticky, showcasing The Substance is committed to the medical reality of the procedure. Despite the fact that it feels very dystopian, the starkness of the horror makes the entire idea really feel like a twisted risk. Elizabeth’s youthful kind Sue sews her up and attaches the feeding fluid to Elizabeth by way of a tube earlier than heading out to audition as the brand new face of the aerobics present. Sue encapsulates every thing Elizabeth misses from her youth — fame, adoration, and alternative. After being given Elizabeth’s previous job, Sue is catapulted to very large ranges of fame and admiration, even incomes herself a billboard proper outdoors Elizabeth’s window.
‘The Substance’ Portrays the Risks of Fame
Elizabeth manages to stay to the rules of the substance, switching each seven days, however finally, Sue’s life-style turns into compulsive and tough to surrender, so she extends her time in Sue’s physique by injecting extra fluid from Elizabeth into Sue. Nonetheless, that extra time has devastating consequences,as she learns what’s utilized by one aspect have to be taken from the opposite, represented by the speedy getting old of one in every of Elizabeth’s fingers. On the best way again from selecting up one in every of her refills, Elizabeth fears she is being adopted and results in a diner. Moore’s stance is flustered and unsettled, showcasing Elizabeth’s rising state of disorientation and distrust. When an older, disheveled-looking man tries to speak to her, the digital camera pans to a birthmark on his hand confirming that he’s the younger, stunning nurse who gave Elizabeth information of the substance within the first place. He tries to warn Elizabeth that the younger version of her will continue to take life from her, however she is so shaken that she runs — unaware of simply how vital that warning could be.
As time passes, Elizabeth turns into increasingly depressed in her personal physique, watching Sue succeed on the TV as she binges on extreme quantities of meals. The Substance indulges in a sequence of Moore violently preparing food whilst watching Sue on late-night TV, passing sneery and mocking remarks in direction of her youthful model as Sue belittles Elizabeth’s work in her interview. This cycle continues, so each time Sue wakes up, the house is trashed and, finally, she turns into so sick of all of it that she decides to only be the youthful kind for so long as she will, pumping stabilizer from Elizabeth’s physique into jars. Throughout this era, she can be given the largest gig of her profession, internet hosting the New 12 months’s Eve Broadcast.
‘The Substance’ Pushes the Limits of Physique Horror
Sue revels in her new life-style for weeks while Elizabeth wastes away in a purpose-built cabinet. Having constructed the proper life for herself, Sue forgets the main caveats of the substance. This complete neglect of her authentic physique results in her operating out of stabilizer fluid proper earlier than New 12 months’s Eve and forces her to modify to permit extra fluid to regenerate. That is when The Substance reaches the point of no return, because it removes all of the shiny and stylized sides of fame and notoriety and jumps headfirst into brutal body horror. Elizabeth wakes up, and Demi Moore has been fully remodeled, her physique has aged quickly, and she or he emerges from the toilet in a fashion reminiscent of the infamous old woman from The Shining. Her pores and skin is fragile and the few remaining hairs on her head are brittle.
Deciding that she has had sufficient, Elizabeth decides to finish the experiment. She telephones the corporate, drags Sue from the toilet, and injects her with the newly delivered termination fluid. Nonetheless, searching of the window on the billboard for the New 12 months’s Eve present, Elizabeth realizes Sue is her solely probability of reliving her heyday. The remorse causes her to shortly take away the needle, reviving Sue, but the method nonetheless severs the 2 duplicates. Upon seeing the termination fluid on the ground, Sue is outraged and begins chasing down Elizabeth, clearly having the higher hand resulting from her youth and physicality (and the very fact she’s been slowly destroying Elizabeth’s physique for months). She smashes Elizabeth’s face into the toilet mirror and brutally beats her to loss of life because the display screen reminds the viewers to “keep in mind you’re one.”
How Does ‘The Substance’ Finish?
Sue shortly heads to the recording of the New 12 months’s Eve present with the hope of salvaging the night time, however her misuse of the substance causes her physique to quickly decay. She heads into the toilet and spits out one in every of her enamel, her fingernails start to peel off and as she makes an attempt to go away, one in every of her ears falls off. She makes the choice to make use of the activator once more to try to create a brand new model of herself. Nonetheless, she inadvertently creates a monstrous fusion of both Elizabeth and Sue. The monster makes an attempt to prepare for the present, placing on Sue’s gown and earrings earlier than slicing out the picture of Elizabeth’s face from her 10-foot self-portrait and sticking it to its face.
The monster heads to the studio to seem on stage in Sue’s place, however it’s met with horrified screams from the viewers. The creature pleads and makes an attempt to earn the viewers’s admiration by screaming “It’s me,” however is attacked as one of many safety guards cuts its head clear off. Nonetheless, with activator fluid nonetheless pumping by way of it, the top merely grows again. A ugly massacre ensues because the creature constantly regenerates, and the viewers is roofed with blood. Ultimately, the creature manages to escape outside before exploding into pieces on the pavement. From the ugly entrails, Elizabeth’s face remains to be intact, and it makes an attempt to crawl away to some type of security. In a cyclical second, her face finally ends up on the Hollywood star from the film’s opening and Elizabeth hallucinates glitter falling from the sky earlier than sinking into the star. All that continues to be of Elizabeth Sparkle is a pile of blood which is shortly cleaned away by a ground sweeper the subsequent morning.
The Substance is a gruesome cautionary tale of the dangers of going after fame regardless of the implications, but it surely additionally represents the hamster wheel of superstar tradition, and the way notoriety can fade simply as shortly because it seems.
The Substance is in theaters now
