The Substance review: Demi Moore’s grotesque body horror movie has all the nuance of a jackhammer

When you hear “body horror” you already know if it’s a movie you want to see.

For aficionados of the challenging genre, the idea of watching a parade of grotesquery is like Christmas, where the guests at lunch include Dario Argento, David Cronenberg and Julia Ducournau.

The more guts, fluid and contortions, the better!

If body horror is not your bag, there has to be a compelling reason to subject yourself to something so viscerally unpleasant, just the thought of it is enough to make you stress out.

On the surface, The Substance gives those reasons. The casting is one of them — a career-best performance from Demi Moore, and all the baggage of the public profile she brings, opposite Margaret Qualley who is the daughter of Moore’s contemporary Andie MacDowell. Its anthemic feminist message with a capital M is another.

But that’s what The Substance is —  surface. It’s shock and awe with little, uh, substance. It’s at-times funny but only as a release valve to dissipate the uncomfortableness.

Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a 50-year-old Hollywood maven with a star on the Walk of Fame, a few accolades and a successful aerobics empire. She is fit as hell, because Moore, who’s actually 61, is impossibly physically beautiful.

Elisabeth is not long for her career though as her boss Harvey, an abominable executive, is looking for a younger replacement. She is pitched a mysterious company who can sell her a “substance”, which allows her to reverse to her youth.

The way it works is that she injects herself with a glowing “brat green” liquid and this facilitates a younger version of Elisabeth to be birthed out of her body through her spine. For seven days, this person, Sue (Margaret Qualley), lives out in open while Elisabeth hibernates in a coma-like state. After the week, they swap.

In theory, there should be a balance and they are continually reminded they are one person just with a split consciousness. In practice, it becomes a bitter, vicious game in which each is out for themselves. Whenever Sue takes time from Elisabeth, the older woman’s body deteriorates.

Elisabeth is given the option to terminate the project but she doesn’t, unable to resist having this “perfect” avatar in the world.

What writer and director Coralie Fargeat is trying to say is obvious — women are literally bending over backwards and killing themselves to achieve unattainable beauty standards, especially as they age.

But except for one scene in which Elisabeth devolves into a frenzy while trying to get ready for a date, staring at herself in the mirror and never content, the film does not give you any real sense of interiority — for either characters, or how they actually relate to each other.

Instead, it’s a spectacle of body horror, pushing it further and further with its extravagant monstrosity until you’re certain you never again need to see or think about this film. Not that it’s giving you that much to think about anyway.

We should be kinder to our bodies and ourselves, duh. We didn’t need two hours and 20 minutes of this to come to that simple realisation.

The Substance wields its power not with the precision of a scalpel but a jackhammer.

Rating: 2.5/5

The Substance is in cinemas now