31 Days of Halloween: The Substance

2024, Coralie Fargeat (Les Fées Cloches) -- download

What is it Kent says? Squick? Yeah, that. Very much that. But its also a movie with loads of style.

It begins with the creation of the Hollywood Walk of Fame star for Elizabeth Sparkle (but is it Hollywood as we do see snow cover it?) which almost immediately begins to fade, crack and be ignored. Metaphor on the megaphone, much? Yes, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, Songbird) was once the talk of Hollywood but now she's relegated to a morning workout show (ala Jane Fonda) and then... she's fired. "Too old!" her sleazy Purple Suit (Dennis Quaid, Fortitude; no actual purple suits, but ohhh so many colourful ones) yells into the phone. She's gonna be replaced.

And then someone sends her an invite. Its an invite to The Substance, something that promises to make her the younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of herself. Elizabeth Sparkle is barely past 50 but she already feels invisible. After the briefest moment of hesitation, she orders it and picks it up from a pristine clean space hidden in the opposite of a pristine, clean neighborhood. There are instructions, very clear and loud instructions about a seven day on, seven day off, switching cycle. Elizabeth injects the drug, suffers debilitating pain, and then her spine splits open and ... Sue (Margaret Qualley, The Leftovers) emerges.

I have to interrupt myself and comment on the loads of style here. This is another horror movie set in an anachronistic mish mash time, with the bright colours and RGB rayon clothing of the 80s, but the sales pitch to Elizabeth comes in the form of a USB drive. Everything about the movie is from the male gaze, through the eyes of a woman who has to live with it. When Elizabeth is taking the drug, she is nude. She is not horrible but a normal woman, once Hollywood Perfect, but who has aged. Most would say she is still an ideal vision, but when Sue emerges, we see what the ideal really is. And in case you are wondering, the perfect body that Sue is depicted as having is mostly prostheses, make up and camera trickery because nobody not even the lovely Margaret Qualley is that perfect.

Sue gets Elizabeth's old job, which is now not just a morning workout show but a nigh porn show, more 20 Minute Workout than Jane Fonda, i.e. there are probably plenty of (not just adolescent boys and) men masturbating to it. Sue has exactly what sleazy old men want and want to sell, and does it with a wink and a giggle and a leer back into the gaze. But seven days later, she has to give it back to Elizabeth. You would think it could be an easy gig. Live as Elizabeth, do whatever you want for seven days and then let Sue do the paying work for seven days. But fame is not just about the money it garners, but the admiration afforded from it. Elizabeth is even more invisible now. Sue is not just on the billboard outside her penthouse, but everywhere leering down at her.

But its not just Elizabeth suffering neurotic anxiety over the situation, but Sue, as she becomes more powerful, more desired, more popular, she wants more -- more fame, more attention, more... time. But as she takes it from Elizabeth, Elizabeth suffers even worse, her body showing the ravages of time beyond what even a day's stolen time could do. It becomes a battle of wills between the two women who are, as the voice on the phone keeps on reminding them, still only one woman. 

I wondered if they remembered each other's seven days, but no, they don't, they just see the consequences of each other's actions, and Sue really gets the short end of that stick, as Elizabeth sinks into a wallowing hole of cooking, eating, eating and more eating. Neither gain weight but... the filth! 

And as expected, things eventually culminate towards doom. Sue is offered a Role of a Lifetime but needs more time. And boy, does she take it, which ends with her pretty much draining Elizabeth of all lifeforce, youth and beauty. Elizabeth has morphed into a monster while somehow still thinking Sue... deserves this? When the months of stolen time are visualized, Elizabeth is a literal monster, a stooped, ancient crone that is more fairy tale witch than anything. And the results of her reaction to THAT emergence is where the movie kind of falls down, to me. We go from stylish, outrageous farcical commentary on social injustice to ... Cronenburg-ian level, well, squick. Total gross-out, over the top, buckets of blood body horror, monster show.

I almost feel as if they weren't sure how the movie should climax. I mean, we knew it had to come to a final battle of wills and bodies, but, wow, did they let loose. There is no lesson learned, just pure unadulterated consequences.

This was a good movie, a well done movie, a movie that wasn't afraid to embrace the sheer lunacy of the situation and make a bold statement at the same time. It didn't blow my socks off though, as I would have preferred to have been completely, utterly, entirely horrified by an ending, instead of  them embracing the camp.