Talk Horror to Me: ‘The Substance’ is all form with little substance

In “Talk Horror to Me,” columnist Emma Kexin Wang ’24 reviews horror, psycho thrillers and all things scary released in the past year. 

Peeling open the stylistic skin of “The Substance,” through its uncomfortable close-ups and suffocating soundscape, the central conceit is ultimately a tired one: a middle-aged Hollywood fitness star, aptly named Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), is bullied into retirement because of her age. That is, until she’s introduced to a black market drug called the Substance, which promises its users a better, younger, more beautiful version of themselves. 

The grotesque consequence of this miracle drug is prophesied in the movie’s first shot: After injecting a neon green liquid into an egg yolk, another yolk forces itself out of the original. Mirroring this concept, a slime-covered Sue (Margaret Qualley) claws her way out of Elizabeth’s back, and, with shock, she admires every inch of her new, youthful body. 

The body horror genre has always been heavily intertwined with the female body, which becomes the site where pain and trauma are both inflicted and processed. “Huesera”’s cracking bones and twisted limbs become a vessel to express the horrors of childbirth and heteronormative marriage; “Men”’s final sequence becomes symbolic of the violent perpetuation of the patriarchy through the blood and gore of childbirth.

Cinematographically, “The Substance” doesn’t disappoint. I had to shield my eyes as the camera tracked Elizabeth’s skin being split open down her spine, and then sewn amateurly back together in an extreme close-up shot. Here, director Coralie Fargeat literalizes a rhetoric that permeates the women’s fitness industry of a thinner, better version of oneself “inside” one’s current body that’s always simply waiting to emerge. 

But that was only the tip of the gory iceberg. Following a standard sci-fi convention, the substance comes with a strict set of rules. That is, the bodies must be switched every seven days. They also offer one ominous warning: remember, you are one. 

But rules are meant to be broken.

Sue, Elizabeth’s younger body, becomes a different person from the depressive, moody 50-year-old. Sue shines, swaggers and walks in slow-mo while the camera pans from her calves to her round, youthful ass. Sue is different, both inside and out, the movie tells us, even if it is arguably the same Elizabeth who occupies her mind. 

For me, the middle arc of the movie was the most intellectually and emotionally compelling. The repetitive mantra that “You are one” is at odds with what is actually happening to Elizabeth/Sue, who seem to become two distinct personalities with every switch. Sue disobeys the one absolute rule of the seven day switch, which results in Elizabeth waking up to find a blackened and shriveled finger. Here, we learn that what one body takes is enacted upon the other. 

While Sue gains fame and love from the public, Elizabeth retreats more and more into herself. The latter’s only purpose is to somehow pass the seven days before switching into Sue’s body, before she would be young and beautiful again. The scenes of her eating an entire rotisserie chicken, of her hair becoming more mangled, of her removing her makeup after seeing Sue’s massive billboard were the emotional crux that convinced me of the film’s substance.

At this point, it seems only a matter of time before Sue would, literally, suck all the life out of Elizabeth. Without spoiling the plot, the last thirty minutes of the film stretches and exaggerates the aged female body, turning it into a site of monstrosity. This is where the movie lost me. The “biting” social commentary highlighted by critics seems to rest on the beauty discourse that always represents the female body as either sex symbol or disfigured monster. There is no in between, and has become a discourse that I’ve grown tired watching.

Similarly, the body horror is enacted to an extreme. As if afraid its audience wouldn’t get the metaphor, the last thirty-minutes splatters so much blood and gore just to spell out its message: this is what happens to a woman’s body when put under the unattainable, impossible-to-maintain beauty standard. Now that Elizabeth becomes a monster, doesn’t she see that her original, middle-aged body was comparatively so much more beautiful?

In the end, “The Substance” was a film that rewards the viewer in commentary that we know, have known, for a long time. Male executive caricatures that objectify women’s bodies engender easy recognition and laughter from the audience. It’s been many days and the countless shots of Sue’s ass still play in my mind. The film’s “message” about aging reminds me too much about what “X” (2022) tried to say two years ago. But Demi Moore’s performance as the lonely, depressed woman is what ultimately saves the movie, as horror’s plotline — and all good storytelling — rests on great characters.

Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

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