‘The Substance’ Review: Demi Moore & Margaret Qualley Do Body Horror Right

2024 truly is shaping up to be the year of small horror flicks. Longlegs, Trap, Immaculate, and most recently Strange Darling have all their their moment in the blood-soaked sun. A24‘s I Saw the TV Glow found its audience by using a style of horror to communicate truly life-changing themes. Azrael, a film that premiered back in March at SXSW, a speechless horror thriller led by the great Samara Weaving, releases in theaters nationwide at the end of September. The momentum for these more contained productions is undeniable.

Neon’s newest body horror The Substance is no different. From director Coralie Fargeat, The Substance allows Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley to shine with their star power all while being a bloody disgusting visual feast and a narrative treasure chest full of commentary regarding fame addiction, beauty standards, and the male gaze.

‘The Substance’ Injects Itself Into Your Veins

From the opening sequence of The Substance, it’s glaringly apparent that Coralie Fargeat is not here to mess around. Distinct in its style, including hand-crafted typography for the packaging of the Substance, the film quickly indoctrinates you into the life of a morning show star. Elisabeth (Moore) has helmed her jazzercise-style morning show for years, becoming a steadfast ratings-getter for the network all while encouraging women to take care of themselves with her signature programming send-off that includes a wink and a blown kiss. Confidence, celebrity-dom, and cool are all things Elisabeth exudes — until she is fired for representing an aging culture of beauty that the network needs to rejuvenate with a newer, hotter actor.

Enter the Substance. And Margaret Qualley. After Elisabeth is persuaded to begin taking the Substance — an immaculately designed at-home injection kit bearing a physical stand-in for the trust we effortlessly pour into the faceless promises of beauty products — she quickly finds the results attractive. She is younger. She is hotter. She is Sue (Qualley).

She applies for her own job and gets it back just this time with a much more alluring bodily presence. With the stipulation that she must reenter her “old” every seven days and proceed to continually switch back and forth every week, her glory days have returned with the network executive, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), obsessing over his new token pretty girl — and yes, he is named Harvey for the very reasons you might think. Life is glimmering with glamor, glory, and gain. Until it isn’t.

Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley Propel This Already Compelling Body Horror Flick

Sound design flooded with slurping, sucking, and slamming, the power and curiosity The Substance inundates you with is inescapable. Equal parts vile and intoxicating, the body horror element doesn’t shy away into the shadows of the film and instead becomes the driving force of every single idea and scene presented, even if it is done to death. The movie clearly understands its path forward and never strays from the madness — both auditory and visually — it relies on to get to its destination. An abrasive techno-score from Raffertie produces a stressful energy only furthering the film’s momentum.

The Demi-aissance is in full swing as Moore embodies an aging Hollywood star reckoning with her fading beauty. The powerful yearning to get back to youthful elegance is portrayed through her effective emotional swings that quickly descend further into an unhinged nature. With Qualley’s actual Hollywood stardom currently surging (the movie understands its own meta mature of casting Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley as opposite ends of the Hollywood spectrum), her natural on-screen aura bleeds through every scene. She is able to match Moore’s frantic yet insular energy which results in a consistently evolving film that is part of its fun.

‘The Substance’ Is One of the Wildest Films of 2024

If I gave you a million, billion years to guess where this movie ends up you never would. I could even give you a million, billion, trillion years and you still wouldn’t guess what the final sequences of this movie emanate. That being said, it feels like it takes a little too long to get there, forcibly pushing past multiple potential ending spots to draw out the movie to 2 hours and 20 minutes. Even with the squirm-inducing and eye-popping visuals, a runtime of 140 minutes is a lot to ask of a body horror Hollywood commentary piece. The film never gives up on what it wants to show and say, much to its own detriment and thematic qualities.

The Substance is undoubtedly one of the wildest movies of 2024, if not the entire 2020s. What it accomplishes is nothing short of impressive and could even potentially see it in the conversation come Oscars season for makeup. Thematically resonant and important, Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and even Dennis Quaid to the extent of his screentime, excel at bringing Coralie Fargeat’s disturbing vision to life. Exhibiting its length as both an asset and a boon, The Substance will instantaneously enter the conversation for hall-of-fame body horror flicks.

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