Fans of body horror will not want to miss director Coralie Fargeat’s latest offering, The Substance, which bagged Best Screenplay for the Frenchwoman at Cannes this year, and features an astounding comeback performance from Demi Moore.
There’s a sense of grim inevitability in the film as we witness a familiar story of a female Hollywood superstar facing rapid career descent literally the day she turns 50. Fired from her aerobics TV show by the loathsome big boss Harvey played with relish by Dennis Quaid (although apparently the late, great Ray Liotta was originally cast in the role), Demi Moore’s Elisabeth is rendered unemployable by the industry in a matter of hours.
The film then launches into horror genre territory where she happens upon a mysterious substance that allows her body to generate another self. The new self is born literally out of Elisabeth’s back in gruesome, gory detail on the bathroom floor where we see her body split, bloody and writhing as she births the young, beautiful and nubile Sue, played by Margaret Qualley.
