Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: In “The Substance,” a new splatter film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, and now playing in theatres, Hollywood actress Elisabeth Sparkle is willing to do anything to be younger, more beautiful, more perfect, including using a new, black-market drug that promises to create “the best version” of herself. The cell-replicating substance does indeed create a new, younger version of Elisabeth, but youth comes with a price and some potentially horrifying side-effects.

CAST: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat.

REVIEW: In its willingness to push buttons, “The Substance” is quite unlike any other movie you’ll see this year.

Violent and gory, and culminating in uncontrolled chaos, it’s a horror film about the downside of selfishness and the virtue of playing by the rules. It’s a showbiz cautionary tale, à la “Sunset Boulevard” by way of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and it allows Demi Moore to let her freak flag fly.

The dual quest for youth and fame is front and center. Both subjects have been essayed before in film, but never with such squirm inducing intensity. It’s outlandish, unrealistic and over-all rather silly, and yet, the idea of using some sort of substance to change your body seems less outlandish, unrealistic and not quite as silly in the age of Ozempic usage and plastic surgery ads beamed into our homes via TV and the internet.

The question at the heart of the film, “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger? More beautiful?” isn’t some wild horror premise. It’s a common notion, pushed to an extreme. Because it is a question thrown at us daily through advertising, the action becomes wretchedly relatable, even if the exact situation isn’t.

As a faded Oscar winner who takes an opportunity to literally shed her old skin, Demi Moore is perfectly and ingeniously cast. She is obviously a successful movie star in real life, so when we see her wracked by insecurity when she overhears obnoxious studio head Harvey (Dennis Quaid), in full-on Hollywood a-hole mode, bellow, “Find me somebody new, now!” it packs a punch. It may be a career best performance for Moore. At any rate, it is certainly unlike anything she has ever done before.

As Moore’s younger, “best” self, Qualley shines. Moore undergoes the broadest physical change, but, as Sue, Qualley takes the character on a journey from naïve and sweet to calculating and disturbing.

“The Substance” has a lot on its mind. Writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s infuses the story with her thoughts on youth, beauty, fame and Hollywood’s unrealistic beauty standards, and uses body horror coupled with the bonkers, Grand Guignol ending to make her points. It goes on a bit too long, but Fargeat’s gruesome vision, and the finale’s ankle-deep bloodbath, is a thing of terrible beauty.