Let me be frank: The Substance (2024, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat) is not for the queasy or those with weak stomachs.
In a career renaissance move, Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkles, a television health and wellness instructor whose health and wellness are diminishing because the corporate media are obsessed with youth and freshness.
The movie’s title is the chemical compound that assures a youthful rejuvenation by splicing the body. The old is subdued into a coma, whereas the younger version emerges and lives a life of reckless abandon but only for a strict schedule. Everything goes haywire if the schedule is not followed and when the chemical is abused.
Demi Moore’s character is in a tug of war of visibility between her younger version/avatar, Margaret Qualley’s Sue.
The Substance proves Demi Moore’s acting mettle in this truly insane body horror movie about the obsession with youth. But I like the theme The Substance carries, which embodies youth in a feminine body aligned with inner turmoil, similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The male binary is clear: Dr. Jekyll is civilized, and Mr. Hyde represents unbridled base animality.
In The Substance, the monstrous is shared and overlaps. One is of a certain age, trying to capitalize on her fading youth and body. The other becomes obsessed with her vigor, her pertness, her vitality. Both become monsters, so to speak.
When the body is discussed, it is usually framed by how it looks and how it is presented. But what does a body sound like? Particularly, how does a body in violent metamorphosis gurgle and sputter?
The Substance uses sound engineering to make bodily ejecta symphonic. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are male body horror, where the transformation is a descent of one (Hyde), and the recuperation and retention of humanity is by the other (Jekyll).
The Substance is layers of human tissue and limbs. You can hear tendons being torn and flesh bubbling over
I like that the writer and director of The Substance is a woman. I hope it is not misogynistic of me to think that only a woman could articulate body horror in this aspect, one that delves into birthing and even the physical emergence of your doppelgänger from your body. The naked bodies in this movie are landscapes of slime and stapled wounds, the price to pay to have your beauty revived. Coralie Fargeat wrote a satire, a disgusting one, about the pressures on women’s bodies affecting women’s mental state.
One of the saddest but most poignant scenes is Demi Moore constantly and violently wiping her make-up and redoing it until her skin is raw because of her insecurity before a date. This is an extreme take on how many women present themselves, or worse, are pressured-programmed to present themselves always from the point of view of being inadequate and with this need to look pleasant at least.
Demi Moore knows a thing or two about diminishing oneself to be pleasant, to be employable in a cruel industry such as Hollywood. It is as if she was born to play this role. She recently won Best Actress at the Golden Globes. She mentioned in her acceptance speech that she was relegated to a popcorn actress, which convinced her for so long that she would never be appreciated for her acting. This movie changed that for her.
When I watched The Substance, I could hear several people making retching sounds. I saw quite a number who walked out of the cinema. This is a horror movie, and I see these violent reactions as an amazing endorsement.
SM Cinemas has been rescreening The Substance since Jan. 15.
You may reach Chong Ardivilla at kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social
