Plastic surgery is a brutal business. No wonder it makes a good subject for a horror film. In fact, the subject may be too much for the genre. Hardened gore fans all over the world have been walking out of Demi Moore’s new film, The Substance, in which a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself tears its way out of her back. Blank silence has reportedly followed several screenings.
It’s imaginative stuff, but not, I suppose, a million miles from the operating room itself. Injecting, stretching, chopping, gouging, poisoning, freezing, stitching, slicing: it’s the grisly and invasive nature of these beauty treatments that make them such a cause for worry, especially when young people decide to do it. The problem is the risk: only two weeks ago, a 33-year-old British woman called Alice Webb died after reportedly undergoing a non-surgical Brazilian butt lift, with a coroner stating further investigation is needed to confirm the cause of death. According to her mother, hospital staff were unable to resuscitate her following the procedure, which had taken place at another location. Last week, another apparent plastic surgery tragedy hit the news – Viviane Lira Monte, 24, died after undergoing six cosmetic procedures during an eight-hour operation in Brazil.
