French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance carries on an inventive trend from some of 2024’s horror genre entries. The Substance is a superb body horror epic critiquing beauty standards. With its distinctly feminist angle, it raises questions about the pursuit of perceived perfection according to a societal obsession with women’s youth. The bombastic pastiche uses tropes of body horror with finesse – it received a 13-minute standing ovation at Cannes. It’s a big comeback role for Demi Moore, who told Deadline The Substance challenges “this male perspective of the idealized woman, that we as women have bought into.”

Using a sci-fi premise that has a younger clone emerging from its older host as if the latter is a shell, Fargeat viscerally depicts a tenet of body horror flicks before it to reflect the challenges of the reality Moore describes. Body horror has traditionally purged individuality from the body like waste, the fear lying in the loss of control over the corporeal self. On the contrary, The Substance is centered around the obsession with control over the natural aging process. Bodily control has been explored in other notable feminist releases this year, such as Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding.

The Substance Is A Commentary On Beauty Standards

Body Horror Is Used To Portray Both Agency And Oppression

The Substance mocks Hollywood’s youth obsession using body horror. Elisabeth, an aerobics star (Demi Moore), recently fired by her boss (Dennis Quaid), is offered a chance to be young again through a mysterious injection. This “better” version, Sue (Margaret Qualley) emerges grotesquely from her back, with her reptilian shedding reflected by the snakelike motifs on Sue’s clothing. They share Elisabeth’s life, but tensions rise as Sue craves more control. The cloning process shows how far many are willing to go to achieve societal ideals, stemming from the misogynistic idea that she has an expiration date. Her youth is her currency.

Another clever way The Substance uses the female body for its core message is Elisabeth’s job. She does everything right by capitalist patriarchy – she’s an empowered, working woman yet, in line with accepted beauty standards, she uses aerobics to achieve a slender body. She still can’t win. This is striking in the context of Demi Moore’s muscular 1997 role in G.I. Jane, closely following her lithe physique in Striptease in 1996. It’s easy to see how this would punish Moore’s body – in her memoir Inside Out, she confessed that she felt she couldn’t stop exercising.

Surgical horror is a body gothic trope. This sci-fi element is impactfully used by Fargeat, with the cloning process and the mysterious injectable “substance.” Its grandiose execution parodies the prevalence of both injectable and surgical aesthetic procedures in the entertainment industry and its symbiotic relationship with societal beauty standards. Sue is also shown to drain the life from Elisabeth when her longer stints accelerate Elisabeth’s deterioration – the balance isn’t honored, showing how all-consuming the obsession with youth can be. The body has long been used as a revolutionary tool in body horror, and in The Substance it’s a clear protest.

Female Directors Are Turning Horror On Its Head In 2024

Rose Glass Explores Body Building And Empowerment

The Substance isn’t the first to stretch the potential of body horror in 2024. Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding was a smash hit, and furthers the satisfying completion of a woman’s self-image she explored in her debut Saint Maud. The crime thriller follows Lou (Kristen Stewart), who lives an unglamorous life unclogging toilets at the gym she runs. Her life is unexpectedly upturned when Jackie (Katy O’Brian) saunters to the free weights, training for a bodybuilding competition. The pair begin a romantic relationship that revolves around Jackie’s goal, leaving a string of bodies and spent steroid needles in their wake.

2024’s horror scene is witnessing a gruesomely beautiful transformation. Female directors like Fargeat and Glass are wielding body horror to dismantle the objectification of women. The Substance critiques Hollywood’s ageism, while Love Lies Bleeding celebrates the unconventional beauty of female bodybuilding. Both films leverage the genre’s shock factor to deliver potent social commentary. This trend hints at a future where body horror is about reclaiming the narrative around the female body. Horror is evolving from a space that exploits anxieties about femininity and transformation to a platform for women to explore agency.

Source: Deadline