At some point in the last decade or so the movie-discussers really latched onto the term “body horror.” They kinda act like if you can identify a movie as body horror that means it’s legit. But also when they say it they almost always mean one thing: it has some David Cronenberg-inspired New Flesh type stuff at some point. I kinda wonder how many of the people comparing any vaguely misshapen flesh to Cronenberg bothered to see his last movie, but I suppose that’s irrelevant.

THE SUBSTANCE definitely fits the category, and there are reasons to compare it to Cronenberg, but tonally, I gotta say, this is way more Frank Henenlotter and Brian Yuzna. Picture a movie that’s a descendent of SOCIETY and the BASKET CASE trilogy and makes you wonder what Screaming Mad George is up to these days, but that also boasts an acclaimed lead performance by Demi Moore, won Best Screenplay at Cannes and is distributed by MUBI. That’s what THE SUBSTANCE is.

For me it was a must-see because it’s movie #2 from Coralie Fargeat, writer/director of REVENGE (2017). It sucks that it took her 7 years to do another feature (with only the serial killer convention episode of The Sandman in between), but thankfully she struts into her delayed sophomore outing like she has diplomatic immunity. She brings along her stylish design, blood-smeared rich people homes and mythic battles between beautiful women with star-shaped earrings and awful men, but this time in a sci-fi vein and much broader, sillier and more indulgent. I’m not sure if I would’ve noticed it was 141 minutes if I didn’t know it going in, but I love Fargeat’s dedication to overdoing absolutely everything, beginning with its narratively redundant (but all the more beautiful for it) time lapse sequence about the lifespan of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Moore (BUNRAKU) plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a vaguely Jane Fonda based fitness show pioneer whose pig of a boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid, BATTLE FOR TERRA) decides on her 50th birthday to replace her with a younger host. Meanwhile, she’s recruited into the clientele of a mysterious company that uses your DNA to grow “a better version of you.” The kit they send her to grow and maintain the thing herself comes with minimal instructions, but she figures it out pretty well and grows a younger, more perfect body named Sue (Margaret Qualley, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS). I’m making it sound too simple – actually it’s quite an ordeal just to get started. She grows extra corneas, her spine splits open, it’s a whole thing. A POV shot shows us her view as she tries out her shiny new body, checks herself out in the mirror, sees her usual body laying motionless on the ground. What’s she gonna do with that old thing? Well, the thing is you have to tap spinal fluid out of it as a stabilizer for the new body, and also you have to switch back and forth every other week otherwise you’re fucked.

So you gotta find a job with a lenient schedule, I guess. Sue applies for replacement host, gets the job, tells Harvey she has to take care of her sick mother every other week.

They seemed to be one consciousness, and the instructions really emphasize “you are one.” I took it as Elisabeth keeping her job through trickery by returning as a young it girl. But soon we realize that as much as Elisabeth and Sue are connected they don’t remember each others’ activities and start to feud. I was a little thrown off, honestly, but I rolled with it.

If somebody somewhere believes this movie should be more subtle, I’m not sure how that would work. It’s like saying anti-matter would be better with more matter, it’s not really in the spirit of the thing. There’s a good indication early on that nobody should expect any nuance when Harvey is introduced swaggering into the men’s room having a loud misogynistic phone conversation as he pisses, his face uncomfortably close to us like he walked up to a Ring cam, and then he leaves without washing his hands. The next scene takes a close look and listen to his nasty mouth disgustingly smacking on a pile of shrimp that he munches and leaves all over a restaurant table as he excuses himself out of an insulting lunch meeting with Elisabeth. (And if you need that scene to be even grosser let me suggest this: if Harvey is named after a famous Hollywood pig is it possible that his shrimp eating is inspired by a legendary Brett Ratner sexual harassment story?)

I think this is genuinely an arthouse gross-out comedy, which is noble, and it has other dimensions too. I love the whole procedure of obtaining and using The Substance. She gets a referral like it’s a secret society, she follows clues to find a locker hidden inside what looks like a condemned building, she receives a package with everything she needs, like a meal kit. In some movies this would be uncovered as a nefarious organization, but that’s not what Fargeat is interested in, and I don’t believe payment is even discussed. All that matters is that there’s this technology and Elisabeth decides to use it. When it goes badly and she calls and doesn’t get much help it’s not really on them, she knew what she was doing.

The style and music are current, but the subject matter seems deliberately out of time. It’s a world where aerobics are big business, but smart phones exist. Apps and social media don’t come up. The depiction of sexism is more time-honored than of-the-moment; Harvey walks around with the all-grey-haired-white-male board members telling women they’d be prettier if they smiled. I laughed whenever they cut to the camera operator of Sue’s extremely butt-shot heavy exercise show with his lens at crotch level. There are pretty funny broad jokes about men being clueless, like the boyfriend who goes to check on Sue while she’s in the bathroom screaming bloody murder, then tells her to get out so he can take a piss, or the guy who makes small talk with Elisabeth on the elevator right after her ear fell off.

Obviously Fargeat is gonna make a mess in the pristine worlds of Elisabeth’s apartment and Hollywood itself. Elisabeth’s star on the Walk of Fame is smeared in ketchup and onion rings, her portrait in glittery snowglobe gel, her floor in blood and puke and chicken bones. If you’ve heard about the last part being particularly crazy, I don’t think you need to worry about overhype. The whole movie has been consistently over-the-top, so it’s impressive that there’s still room for Fargeat to hit the NOS in the last stretch. It starts with honestly one of the great title cards of cinema and becomes a raucous carnival catapulting dumpsters full of splatter, pulsating fangorian creature FX genius and dark humor into the laps of glitzy Hollywood New Year’s Eve celebrants. Silliness is as abundant as blood, and to be clear there’s an EVIL DEAD remake amount of blood hosing off an entire audience, covering every inch of a long hallway prominently featured earlier in the movie, and most notably covering one of the many round, aerobicized asses. Where Elisabeth ends up I could never have predicted even if I was working around the clock with a team of experts, yet it feels like the 100% correct and perfect conclusion. Accept no younger, smoother substitutes.

I have to praise Qualley, whose pointed objectification throughout the movie might mask how complicated the role is, mixing a physically demanding character with ALL ABOUT EVE fame monster and her wide-eyed Frankensteinian creation from POOR THINGS. I read that she wears prosthetic breasts in the movie, which is very fitting for a story about impossible beauty standards – even she needs to resort to technology.

But obviously this is the Demi Moore show, and it’s exciting to see her throwing herself into a movie and role that are both this great and this unexpected for someone of her particular resume. She’s been working semi-under-the-radar but not doing SyFy movies or some shit – unless you count GHOST she’s barely ever done any genre work. This has been discussed as a comeback or even awards contender for her but it’s pretty far off the beaten path for that sort of thing not only because of the Not Safe For Awards Shows level of goo but because the performance allows her the freedom of a Nicolas Cage range of frequencies, from natural to running around in monster makeup cackling like a cartoon witch. It’s only a bonus that it takes advantage of Moore’s status (and old photos) as an A-list star in a previous era, adding weight to its mockery of dipshits who don’t see the value of women after they reach middle age, and already hold them to nonsensical expectations before that. I was reminded during my research that the Razzies nominated Moore’s all-timer performance in G.I. JANE for worst actress, because they had it in for her for being naked in STRIPTEASE. I guess it’s not so bad that her doing nudity now is being framed as bravery.

By the way, it occurred to me in the middle of the movie that the director of REVENGE was making a movie with the model of the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE vhs cover. I’d love to know if they discussed that.

I’ve been through HEREDITARY, US, MIDSOMMAR, PEARL and INFINITY POOL so I know Moore probly won’t end up getting Oscar nominated for what I consider one of the best performances of the year. But we should hose the Dolby Theatre with red Karo syrup if THE SUBSTANCE doesn’t at least get a makeup nomination. Prosthetics and makeup effects designer Pierre-Olivier Persin (INSIDE, ATHENA) told Indiewire, “I don’t see it as the destruction of a woman’s body. I find beauty in what we do, what we sculpt and what we paint.” Maybe that’s one way it differs from what some people are talking about when they say body horror. Yes, it confronts us with our fears of not being able to control what becomes of our flesh, but it’s having a fun time doing it. It’s definitely not on the side of perfection. It prefers the hideous.

We see the industry and societal pressure on Elisabeth to make the choices she does, but I think it works because it’s really more of a story of personal vulnerabilities and self hatred. To me the most heartbreaking scene involves torturing herself trying to look perfect for the one character we know is gonna be impressed by her no matter how she looks. Ultimately it’s about the need to accept yourself and your physical changes as you age. I think the climax is pretty open to interpretation, but I’ve seen Fargeat describe it as empowerment, and I know I will be citing [REDACTED] as one of those lovable symbolically aspirational cinematic figures for the foreseeable future.

THE SUBSTANCE is definitely one of my favorites this year, a great time at da movies. Somebody please hurry up and greenlight Fargeat’s next four or five projects and keep this ball rolling.