It’s going to be the horror movie that divides opinion more than any other in 2024, and we’ve got a particularly hot take. The Substance isn’t just bad filmmaking, it’s insulting. Warning: minor spoilers ahead.
Horror movies that superficially make you scream are so 1990s. Seven months into the year and we’ve been spoiled with scary new movies that have just as much bite as they do bark. So when MUBI announced an ominous new body horror, it should have been a slam dunk.
We learned little in the trailer, and that worked. Demi Moore – yes, she’s back and ballroom dancing – wants a better, younger version of herself after being kicked out of her job for being too old, who comes in the form of Margaret Qualley. To get a Qualley clone, she injects the Substance like it’s Calpol.
Does it all have a happy ever after? No! Is there a final 20-minute sequence bonkers enough to rival the end of Dario Argento’s Phenomena? Yes! But take the blood, goo, and vomited boobs out of The Substance and you’re left with an idea that is so basic in its backward thinking, it’s adding absolutely nothing to the genre or a wider society that’s in its fourth wave of feminism. Every woman should be insulted by the hagsploitation If you are reading this, you’re likely to be scouring the internet for every single opinion on The Substance before you’ve even seen it, and as expected, you’re going to find a healthy mix of heated opinions. This is either a 5 or 1 star experience.