Coralie Fargeat's 2024 satirical body horror film, The Substance, follows a fading celebrity, Demi Moore, who uses a black market drug to create a younger version of herself. The film, an international co-production between France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and grossed over $42 million on a $17.5 million production budget.
Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle, a once-celebrated Hollywood movie star who is dismissed from her aerobics TV show due to her advanced age. She is given a flash drive advertising The Substance, a black market serum that generates a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of herself. Elisabeth injects the serum, resulting in a much younger version of herself emerging from a slit in her back. The Substance establishes a symbiotic relationship between the two bodies, with Elisabeth transferring her consciousness every seven days, while the inactive body remains unconscious.
The film explores the relationship between Elisabeth and Sue, who become jealous and insecure. Elisabeth injects the serum to terminate Sue, but Sue brutally beats her to death before leaving to host the New Year's Eve telecast. Sue's body begins to deteriorate, and Elisabeth's mask falls off, causing the audience to erupt into violence. Elisabeth's original face detaches, and she crawls onto her Hollywood Walk of Fame.
I have reviewed more than thirty films for the Thresher, but before today, I had never given a review of a pure horror movie. Spending money on a film that would, at best, give me nightmares and, at worst, be a painful series of jump scares makes me more than anxious. But I was sufficiently captivated by Coralie Fargeat's second film, "The Substance," to get past my reservations. The movie earned excellent reviews from critics and won the coveted Best Screenplay prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival—a rare confluence of accolades for a horror film. I was drawn to "The Substance" by this praise, and I'm surprised to find myself joining the chorus of people who are praising Fargeat's most recent The satirical edge of "The Substance" is its main driving force.
The Substance explores the intriguing history and effects of LSD on science, culture, and society in an engaging and thought-provoking documentary. From its unintentional discovery by Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann in 1943 to its experimental application in medicine and eventual significance in the counterculture movements of the 1960s, the film, which was directed by Martin Witz, offers a thorough examination of the psychedelic drug. Viewers interested in history, psychology, and societal change will find Witz's method to be both instructive and thought-provoking. The documentary is notable for its fair treatment of the debates surrounding LSD as well as its promise as a therapeutic aid. The movie explores the early years when LSD was a potentially effective treatment for psychological disorders and a means of self-discovery.
