With the end of the year upon us, I felt this was the best time to talk about what I feel was the best film of 2024. First I want to start by saying that this hasn’t been my favorite year for cinema, especially when you look at the kind of films you see at award shows, mostly all those films were forgettable and not anything I feel will become cinematic classics. That being said, when it comes to the horror genre, this has been a pretty great year. For a while I would have said Late Night with the Devil was going to be my favorite horror film of the year, but then The Substance came out, and that just floored me, and I’ve kind of become a bit obsessed with the film. It’s the only film this year that has stuck with me for days and just had me wanting to watch it again so I could savor its visuals, whether they be beautiful or grotesque.
It’s no secret that Hollywood is obsessed with beauty and youth with many of the aging stars performing surgeries and injecting themselves with chemicals to remain “beautiful” so their status can continue to shine. This has spilled over into social media and has fostered this notion of needing to attain unreasonable levels of beauty. This is exactly what The Substance is shining a light upon, and though many things are exaggerated in the film, it does come from a place of truth, and that’s only one of the elements of horror in this film: just how far people are willing to go to hold onto their youth.
The film’s opening sequence is simply yet profound as we see a star being constructed on the “Walk of Fame”. It’s a single shot with a bird’s-eye view of the star, and it pretty much tells us the story of Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) and how she went from being an actress people adored and then seeing her celebrity fade to just being forgotten, just like many of the other celebrities with their names etched in stone along Hollywood boulevard over the years. Now on her 50th birthday, Elisabeth is stuck doing workout videos and is about to be pushed out of that position to be replaced by someone younger and more beautiful. Her luck may start to change when she discovers a flash drive that contains a commercial for a product that could possibly change her life, and feeling she has nothing left to lose, Elisabeth puts in a call to receive the product.
Now I should warn you that if you have a fear of needles, this film will make you squirm in your seat, and the type of body horror this is can be pretty gnarly, but it has a purpose. When we see Elisabeth take her first injection and basically birth a fully grown woman from her back, this is just the start of many horrors to come in this film, but for fans of gore, this film is cinematic catnip that had me grinning wickedly at the screen.
The body that Elisabeth “births” is Sue (Margaret Qualley), and basically how it works is that Elisabeth and Sue have a symbiotic relationship. Elisabeth lives within Sue’s body, but every seven days she has to switch back to her own body for seven days, and breaking the rules has some very bad consequences. What makes this more fun is that the longer Sue is out in the world, she creates her own personality to the point she becomes a different person entirely, and the struggle over which body gets to function in the world plays out. If this sounds weird or confusing, when you see it play out on the screen, it makes more sense.
Demi Moore really is fantastic in this role, and I haven’t seen her this committed to a performance since the 90s when she did GI Jane. The difference here, though, is that this feels like her most genuine performance, because in many ways she is this character in real life. This role allows us to see her vulnerability and her anger, and it isn’t like she just suddenly has this talent; it has always been there, but the Hollywood system deemed her aged out of many roles. When you consider also that Moore is 62 and is also baring it all for the screen and posing as a 50-year-old, I still applaud her and think she still looks amazing … Now as we see he body transform over the course of the picture, well, that is an entirely different story. Then we have Margaret Qualley, who has become a blossoming star since she appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood as the hitchhiker who Brad Pitt picks up to take to the Manson compound. Qualley just simply is mesmerizing as we see her as the symbol of sexuality and youth, and the way we see her take on Elisabeth’s mannerisms and then evolve into her own personality is something that stands out from many other performances this year. I loved how we see her almost becoming a junkie to stay in her youthful body, and we definitely see how this substance is literally a drug.
Writer and director Coralie Fargeat may only have two feature films under her belt, but she is someone I am already a big fan of. Her first film was The Revenge (2017), and despite being a straightforward revenge tale, the visuals and the brutality of the film are what make it stand out and stick with the viewer. What Fargeat does with The Substance is simply on another level. Just think of a David Cronenberg body horror story being told through the cinematic lens of Stanley Kubrick, and that is what The Substance is. I love the look of this film, the beautiful sharp cinematography with incredible posh set designs; then there is the underground facility Elisabeth has to go to retrieve her supplies as though it were a seedy drug deal. Then there is how Fargeat chooses to film the horror. This isn’t implied horror; instead we see it in all its bloody glory with some impressive practical effects that reminded me of the 80s horror films Basket Case and Society.
One thing I’ve noticed in Fargeat’s two films is how she depicts the men in them. She really enjoys showing their disgusting behavior, not just through their words, but through their actions. Dennis Quaid is in part a villain of the story as we see him as the Hollywood producer who is quick to dismiss Elisabeth in a scene where he is devouring shrimp that may be one of the films more nauseating moments. I love how unapologetically she writes these characters, and she seems to stand firm on making the males in her films unlikeable scumbags to be vilified.
I’ve noticed that some people have an issue with the film’s ending, and I feel everyone may have a valid point for not liking it (don’t worry I won’t spoil it) … For me I absolutely loved how crazy the ending gets. It is the WTF moment of the year for me, and I just felt it was the best and only way this film could end. Because of how off-the-rails this film is, I’m happily surprised by how much this film is being embraced, and it even got some Golden Globe nominations. The film deserves it, and in a perfect world, I’d love to see it win. The Substance is a film that ten years from now I’m sure I’ll still embrace, and if you are a horror fan, this is one you should absolutely check out.
The Substance is streaming now exclusively on Mubi.
