How horror film ‘The Substance’ stands for the dangers of vanity and the craving of youth

You’ve probably been hearing a lot lately about new horror movie The Substance, a film about fame and façade, starring Demi Moore in one of her best cinematic performances yet.

While the film itself is two-thirds trophy-worthy (or at least possibly scooping the independent awards sector), the final act is like a B-grade-stamped supercut, but on a blockbuster budget. If it doesn’t blow your mind, your eyes are sure to want to squint or dart in any direction but toward the screen.

There’s blood, blood, so much blood that Stanley Kubrick would be rolling in his proverbial grave. And darkness, so much darkness, Edgar Allan Poe would be cackling like a stark-raving raven. Put simply, this film isn’t for the lighthearted.

In its own way, The Substance is a commentary about the dangers of craving youth as we get older. The synopsis is as old as the entertainment industry itself: television personality Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has dazzling audiences for years with her workout routines, but suddenly her TV boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) thinks she’s too old. She loses her job leading a fitness class for daytime TV and whilst getting checked up at the doctor’s, is coaxed to try a new drug called The Substance by a nurse.

Every time Elisabeth takes ‘the substance’, she gains renewed youth and beauty, but there is a cost, for every hour she’s in her youthful state she must also suffer in dark, nightmarish solitude and sleep.

Scenes shift from dark and claustrophobic to garish and blood-filled, while the soundtrack grows increasingly eerie, like scratching nails on a blackboard, appearing more erratically as the movie moves on toward its shocking and horrific climax.

The Substance lifts horror up to the mantle it knows it ultimately deserves. With terrific nods to The Thing, The Shining, The Elephant Man, The Exorcist, The Blob, even Carrie, director Coralie Fargeat has consciously (or perhaps unconsciously) created a masterpiece of the genre here. The Substance grabs the genre of horror right from its roots, pulls all the greatness and gore right out of it, and right at a point in history when the message of the dangers of vanity are constantly right in front of you.

This movie is timely with all the pressure we currently feel from being our best selves on social media. But just like social media can traumatise you, so could this film so enter the cinema cautiously. If a BA media graduate like myself feels guilt and dread and fear and exultation from the film, who knows what other filmgoers might sense. You have been warned.

Antonino Tati

‘The Substance’ is in cinemas now, including Luna Leederville and Luna SX.