The female body is a horror movie waiting to happen. From puberty and the grisly onset of menstruation, in pictures such as Brian De Palma’s Carrie and John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, to pregnancy and childbirth – Rosemary’s Baby is the obvious example – women have provided a rich seam of inspiration for genre film-makers over the past half century. But look a little closer and two trends become apparent: the vast majority of female body-based horror deals with various aspects of the reproductive system, and it has largely been made by men (Titane and The First Omen, two recent examples of movies that harness pregnancy for horror, are notable exceptions). And this is part of what makes French director Coralie Fargeat’s gut-churningly visceral second feature so refreshing: The Substance not only offers a female perspective on women’s bodies, but also argues that things only start to get properly messy once fertility is a dim memory.
Of course there’s no shortage of horror movies that use the older female body for grotesque shock value. They’re a key element of the “hagsploitation” subgenre – think Mia Goth coated in saggy-flesh prosthetics in Ti West’s X. But the starting point for The Substance is not so much the body itself as a reaction to the idea of it. The story is triggered by the violent swerve in attitudes once a woman has turned 50 and hit what society deems to be her built-in obsolescence. It’s gleefully excessive stuff – a film that conjures up outrageous and monstrous images and then covers them all with yet more blood. It makes Fruit Chan’s 2004 film Dumplings look like a model of tasteful restraint (and that, you may remember, was a movie that served up a menu of human foetus-filled dim sum in its quest for beauty and rejuvenation). Deep within all the oozing spinal fluids and pustulant growths here, there’s a kernel of credibility: The Substance plunges us into the deranged, disorienting emotional carnage of menopause in a way that few other films have managed.
In the central role of movie star turned TV fitness instructor Elisabeth Sparkle, Demi Moore gives the most fearless and exposed performance of her career. Having spent her entire adult life in front of the camera, Elisabeth is well aware that the industry can forgive many things, but ageing isn’t one of them. She celebrates her 50th birthday over lunch with her boss, brash TV executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid). He destroys a plate of shrimps (the sound is ickily cranked up throughout the picture, but the crunch and squelch of crustaceans is particularly wince-inducing) and casually terminates her contract.
Depressed, with nothing but the endless wasteland of irrelevance to look forward to, Elisabeth is an ideal customer for the Substance, a hidden-market cellular reproduction drug that promises a new you – literally: a box-fresh, wrinkle-free version synthesised from your existing genetic material and “birthed” in the most gruesome way imaginable. Elisabeth’s dewy replicant is Sue (Margaret Qualley), a physically perfect specimen destined for instant stardom after taking over the metallic leotard and the central role in Elisabeth’s freshly vacated fitness show. Awkward. There are caveats to this uneasy coexistence – the new version and the original have a delicate symbiotic balance; they must switch places every seven days, and the new incarnation needs to be stabilised daily. It’s a macabre Faustian pact – part Dorian Gray, part Gremlins.
The theme of futuristic body modification is a continuing fascination for Fargeat: her 2014 short film Reality+ dealt with an implanted brain chip that allowed the recipient the perception of having the perfect physique. After this, her blood-drenched feature debut, Revenge (2017), tapped into the fury of the #MeToo movement and set the tone for the precarious balance between feminism and exploitation that characterises her latest picture.
I will confess that I had some reservations about the overt objectification of the central female character in Revenge (played by Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz). On the evidence of that film and The Substance, Fargeat could rank alongside Blue Is the Warmest Colour director Abdellatif Kechiche as one of the most arse-obsessed film-makers currently working. But here, the way the camera worships at the altar of immaculately toned buttocks and glistening skin elasticity works perfectly. Elisabeth has been trained to view the world through the lens of the entertainment industry; one that magnifies even the slightest imperfection, that equates youth with worth. It’s no wonder she opts for desperate measures.
Perhaps it hardly needs to be stated, but this is not the film to look to for realism and internal logic. Fargeat rather glosses over the question of whether there is a shared consciousness between the two women. “Remember you are one”, cautions the flashcard instruction manual that comes with the vials of the Substance. Inevitably, however, Elisabeth and Sue find themselves at war over the balance of their dwindling shared resources. It’s a battle that can’t end well for either. But ultimately, isn’t that the curse of any woman in the public eye? The one competition she is always destined to lose is with her younger self.
In UK and Irish cinemas
