“The Substance” is the best horror film I have ever seen; it was also the first movie to ever evoke physical nausea in me, which actually says quite a lot.
I love the horror genre and have always been able to stomach gore when necessary. I’ve been into horror movies since high school, and I even took a horror film class during spring quarter. Still, “The Substance,” starring Demi Moore and written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, is the first film to strip my steel stomach of bragging rights.
Despite the fact that I can typically handle gore, I still tend to prefer more conceptual and psychological horror movies to gory ones. Within the horror genre as a whole, gratuitous gore often seems to simply compensate for a lacking plot.
What makes “The Substance” so impactful is that the gore is essential to the message the movie aims to send. Though the movie might technically be science fiction, it is an all too realistic representation of the brutalization required of women’s bodies in order to be deemed acceptable by society.
The film centers on Elisabeth Sparkle – once a shining star, now a washed-up celebrity. On her 50th birthday, she is brutally fired from her TV role for “aging out of the job.” Distressed, she gets into a car accident, which puts her on a path to start using The Substance, a treatment that will allow her to split her body into two. The “matrix” body is the same middle-aged Elisabeth Sparkle we have come to know; meanwhile, the “new” body, dubbed Sue, is a young, perfectly packaged soon-to-be starlet who will allow Elisabeth to continue living out her Hollywood dream. Elisabeth must switch between the two bodies every seven days, without exception.
Elisabeth injects herself with a yellow activator serum, and Sue emerges from Elisabeth’s split spine. Through a medley of tubes and syringe needles, the two naked forms exchange bodily fluids to stabilize their split existence. This procedure, which needs to be repeated for each switch, is unsettling for the viewer despite the sterility. Such exposure of bodies and their fluids, especially with regard to cosmetic procedures, is something normally omitted from the media. Thus, the extractions, injections and transfusions initiate the film’s ascension into the most gruesome body horror I’ve yet to encounter.
Sue is an instant success, her beauty and youth supported by Elisabeth’s life force. When Elisabeth resides in her matrix form, she starts to notice how Sue’s existence taxes her original body. Elisabeth begins to age at a more rapid rate, and starts to resent her other half for this.
The two forms start a feud. Sue’s hunger for youth begins to grow, and she starts to disrespect the seven day balance. One extra day as Sue results in a witch-like, deteriorating pointer finger for Elisabeth. Meanwhile, Elisabeth rebels from within the apartment, having developed agoraphobia, unbelieving that her older form deserves to live a life outside her apartment. Throughout this feud, I noticed that Elisabeth’s self-brutalization occurs for three main reasons:
Firstly, Elisabeth brutalizes her older form in an attempt to beautify herself. She does this first in beginning her use of the substance. Before fully resigning herself to the apartment, she attempts to put on makeup for a date; however, her continued dissatisfaction with her appearance leads her to beat her face and pull out her hair. As Sue, her overuse of The Substance also leads to even greater brutalization of Elisabeth’s older form.
Secondly, there is brutalization of the self as an effort to control the other. Elisabeth leaves behind revolting messes in defiance of Sue’s overuse of The Substance, while the messes only increase Sue’s hate and abuse of her other form. Each form at some point slaps themself in the face to try to get across their message. This relationship is reminiscent of an addict’s relationship between a sober self and a relapsed self: Elisabeth tries to get Sue to see reason, while Sue continues to misuse The Substance without any regard for the consequences.
Lastly, the two forms of Elisabeth brutalize one another in an attempt to destroy what she hates about herself. After Sue goes without switching for three months, she is forced to switch back to Elisabeth. Elisabeth decides to terminate Sue in a moment of clarity after waking up intensely deformed after three months of Sue’s misuse. After injecting half of the termination fluid into her younger counterpart, Elisabeth begins to regret her choice. “You are the only lovable part of me left,” she says heartbreakingly while performing CPR on Sue. Sue wakes up, and faces her other form – both of them conscious simultaneously somehow. Sue sees the termination fluid and begins to viciously attack her decaying other form until Elisabeth is on the brink of death.
Elisabeth hates Sue because Sue is the part of herself that will do anything for fame and societal approval. Meanwhile, Sue hates Elisabeth because Elisabeth is the old and ugly part of herself, the part of herself deemed unacceptable by society. Yet, they are the same person, hating two halves of the same whole.
This, to me, is the paradox of being a woman. You hate what you see in the mirror, and you hate that you hate what you see in the mirror. Society tells us we are not worthy of existence if we are not beautiful, and we believe them. We brutalize our own bodies because we are addicts to societal approval. Yet, we are aware of our own addiction. We know that we would be happier if we could let go of this need for outward validation, and so we hate the part of ourselves that still yearns for it. Elisabeth and Sue are the personification of the battle that exists within us all.
In the end, we are reminded that society will dismiss us eventually no matter which part of ourselves wins the battle. Beating Elisabeth so brutally led to a sudden deterioration of Sue’s body. Wanting a better version of herself, Sue injects herself with what was left of the yellow activator serum from the start. Emerging from Sue’s spine is the hideous, intensely deformed “Monstro Elisasue,” who is not even recognizable as human. When Monstro Elisasue shows up to host an event in Sue’s place, the audience begins screaming and attacking her horrific form. Devastatingly, the dilapidated celebrity pleads with them as they attack, shouting “It’s still me! It’s me Sue! It’s me Elisabeth!” before her body begins to explode, showering the audience in blood.
This scene was the most gruesome in the movie, leading to my feelings of nausea. At first, I wondered whether this scene was worth it. It was near impossible to watch – looking around the theater there was not a single person who watched it head-on. I thought the movie might end with Sue’s awful beating of Elisabeth, which was already gory enough for my taste. Does this level of gore not ostracize audiences? If people are so disturbed by this scene, will they still be able to take away the message the film sends?
As I sat with my thoughts, I realized how essential this final scene is for viewers to actually understand what the film is communicating. Without this final scene, “The Substance” would just be a movie about self hatred. What this gruesome ending invokes is the fact that we hate ourselves because we are socially conditioned to. “The Substance” is a commentary on our civilization’s failings, not our own.
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Featured Image via Mubi
