Six Movies to Watch If You Loved The Substance
Demi Moore is already getting early Oscar buzz for her blood-soaked performance in the 2024 body horror film
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The Substance arrived in theaters last Friday after freaking out audiences at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Moviegoers might not be mentally prepared to see Demi Moore at the center of such an intense, gory, and brazenly experimental film. The Substance is body horror with a capital ‘H.’ The risk already seems to be paying off for Moore, who is getting early Oscar buzz for emotionally grounding this blood-soaked fable about how societal beauty standards take a toll on women’s psyches.
Demi Moore plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a once-lauded actress who gets fired from her TV gig and resorts to trying an underground treatment that promises instantaneous youth and beauty. The catch? She has to split her time equally between her current aging body and her new younger self, portrayed by Margaret Qualley. Any deviation from the rules unleashes a myriad of horrors on Elizabeth—and the audience. French writer-director Coralie Fargeat portrays this self-administered remedy as something much more grotesque than any cosmetic procedure, forcing viewers to consider the pain and suffering that Elizabeth is ready to bear in order to alleviate the social suffering brought on by aging.
A recent trailer for The Substance features shots of preview audiences gasping, squirming, and watching the screen through their fingers. Fargeat’s bold visual approach doesn’t pull any punches. If you're not up for watching close-ups of injections, or a needle suturing a wound, maybe wait for streaming so you can fast-forward through the yuckiest parts. Fortunately, Fargeat also finds ways to inject a healthy dose of humor into many scenes, especially the film’s bonkers finale, which is destined to be eternally meme’d.
If you’re curious about whether you can stomach watching The Substance on the big screen, consider these six movies that share DNA with Fargeat’s gleefully grotesque fable. And if you’ve already experienced The Substance, the following offerings might also serve as a perfect way to recapture the rush.
Carrie (1976)
This classic 1976 horror film is a good litmus test of your tolerance for gory imagery. If you’ve gone through your whole life without sitting through Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s acclaimed novel, chances are you prefer your feminist allegories to be relatively bloodless. Sissy Spacek got an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the titular teenage outcast who unleashes telekinetic mayhem at her high school prom. The climactic showdown between Carrie and her zealot mother (played by Piper Laurie) has an intimacy in its violence that feels akin to the dramatic face-off between Moore and Qualley’s characters in The Substance’s latter half.
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Director John Fawcett’s 2000 teen-centered werewolf flick found a cult following on home video, undoubtedly as the centerpiece of countless sleepovers. It was just a few years before author Stephanie Meyer would appropriate monster metaphors for her Twilight books. In Ginger Snaps, sisters Ginger and Brigitte find their strong bond tested when Ginger is turned into a ravenous werewolf after getting attacked one evening. Pre-pubescent Brigitte is left wondering if Ginger can reign in her violent impulses. Like the lead characters in The Substance, Ginger and Brigitte see a reflection of themselves in each other, and their eventual showdown is borne of the power imbalance between them. Ginger Snaps also features endearing old-school practical effects rather than CGI, and Fargeat takes a similar approach for many effects in The Substance.
Starry Eyes (2014)
A young actress in L.A. who strikes a Faustian bargain with a movie producer soon finds her body going through an agonizing process of decay. Actress Alexandra Essoe’s committed lead performance makes the harrowing transformation difficult to witness. Like The Substance, Starry Eyes paints a grim picture of the entertainment business and rages against its commodification of women’s bodies.
Titane (2021)
Two years before The Substance churned the stomachs of Cannes festival-goers, French writer-director Julia Ducournau won the Palme d’Or for Titane, an allegorical thriller centered around Alexia, a cold-blooded killer on the run. Alexia transforms her appearance and passes herself off as Adrian, the long-lost child of a distraught fire captain, and finds unexpected redemption. Did we mention she’s also carrying something in her womb that is not quite human? Titane, like The Substance, finds potent metaphors in its disturbing imagery. See also: Ducournau's debut feature Raw, about a college student with cannibalistic urges.
Birth/Rebirth (2023)
This indie thriller centers on a morgue technician (Marin Ireland) who is secretly experimenting with a serum that can reanimate the dead ... and the key ingredient comes from amniotic fluid. Cue squirm-inducing scenes of amniocentesis, injections, and IV drips. The most queasy part: her test subject is a recently deceased girl whose grieving mother (Judy Reyes) discovers the experiment. Director Laura Moss’s unique spin on Frankenstein is equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking.
Relic (2020)
Relic, like The Substance, taps into our fear of aging. In this case, it's the creeping dread of watching one’s parent inch closer to death. At the start of director Natalie Erika James’s 2020 Australian film, it’s clear that something is not right with grandma. Elderly matriarch Edna (Robyn Nevin) has been showing odd signs of mental deterioration, forcing her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) to assess Edna’s ability to live independently in her rural home. The nightmarish imagery of rot and decay is on par with The Substance's most graphic images. But whereas The Substance is somewhat blunt with its messaging, Relic opts for a more mysterious vibe where little is explained, and much is left open for interpretation.
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