THE SUBSTANCE

CONTAINS SPOILERS AND YIKES

Yikes. I mean, yikes. If you've been waiting impatiently for a genuinely extreme body horror, something totally unrestrained and boasting a final act that is honestly up there with the last reels of Peter Jackson's Braindead for sheer blood flood, then here it is. The Substance is one of the best full-on horror grossouts in years, possibly decades and, as a longtime genre fan, I obviously loved it. Finally: here's a movie that doesn't hold back, doesn't cut away, doesn't tone it down for the softer sensibilities, and also has so much to say in between the grotesqueries.

It's not about being old (to quote Citizen Kane, "old age is the one disease you don't look forward to being cured of"); it's about looking it. Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, 61 and absolutely going for it) is a fading Hollywood star, fired from her regular fitness TV show because she's starting to look her age and Harvey (Dennis Quaid), the crass-to-the-point-of-caricature studio head, wants somebody younger and sexier instead. A young doctor gives her a thumb drive promoting The Substance, an apparently simple set of syringes, chemicals and nutrients which cause her to graphically birth her a younger, better version of herself (Margaret Qualley) - a spectacular scene in a cold, white-tiled bathroom. Calling herself Sue, the "newborn" replaces Elisabeth as the network's fitness star and is an immediate ratings smash. But whilst the procedure comes with very clear rules, she is so enamoured with her new self that, as Sue, she immediately starts breaking them...

The final act of The Substance is an all-stops-out overdose of monster mayhem: a body horror with the grisly flesh-twisting mutations of The Fly, The Thing and Society (along with the prom night spectacle of Carrie) presented with genuinely startling practical and prosthetic effects, now mixed with hilarious yet absurd comedy. Strangely, the closest film it's referring to is actually a comedy, Death Becomes Her (which even starred Mr Demi Moore): the quest for eternal youth and vitality at whatever cost, and the physical horror of when it goes wrong. (There's also an old Stanley Baxter sketch, substituting plastic surgery for body-cloning serums, in which the process goes spectacularly and hilariously awry at the presumed moment of triumph.) And yet it doesn't shy away from moments of actual humanity: after a chance encounter with an old school friend, who says she's still beautiful, Elisabeth is so thoroughly conditioned to the importance of youth that she can't conceive of the idea of just going out for the evening and looking her age. (Specifically this is more relevant for women: men are allowed to look like decrepit physical wrecks with no problems, but woe betide any womrn who shows the slightest signs of not looking like the Prom Queen any more.)

Questions do remain, however, concerning the procedure itself and the "science" behind it. If the mind and consciousness are transferred between the new and old bodies, then why are both Elisabeth and Sue active at the same time in the later stages of the film? And if they're separate people, then where's the benefit for Elisabeth? It's also left unexplained, though it probably doesn't matter, who's marketing this stuff and why, how it's ever supposed to be commercially viable or where it even comes from. And it's odd, though convenient, that Elisabeth doesn't appear to have any friends or family (or even assistants or domestic staff) to visit her in her massive apartment.

I'm delighted that The Substance is actually getting a wide UK cinema release rather than briefly playing a few arthouse screens before dropping onto streaming, though I do wonder how the Friday night popcorn audience will respond to what Coralie Fargeat has achieved. (The running time of 140 minutes might count against it as well.) But for my part, I thought it was terrific. The Substance is superbly made, funny, shocking, and consistently inventive (whether illustrating Elisabeth's decline through the construction and subsequent neglect of her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, needle-dropping an apposite cue from Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo score, or just including queasy closeups of an eye with multiple irises). Do see it.

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