The Substance – 2024

The Substance was widely debated, or rather discussed, by people close to me last year. I never got around to seeing it myself until now. I think it’s interesting to see a horror flick with people in the roles that aren’t necessarily connected to horror in the first place. I mean, it’s more interesting to see what Demi Moore can become in a horror movie than what Robert Englund could accomplish in a new movie.

And Demi Moore kind of plays the lead in The Substance. I don’t know if you should call it co-lead, maybe because she isn’t the main character all the time. Well, the character is the lead, but not her… Let me explain.

The Substance is about a woman who is in the fitness industry. She’s starting to get too old for the industry standards, and the corporation plans to replace her. In fact, they don’t plan to; they will replace her. She feels like she’s being tossed aside because of her age and that she doesn’t fit the beauty ideals anymore. Anyway, she comes across this new drug that lets her become a better version of herself so that she can continue with the life she has lived before and still wants to live, but as a better (younger) version of herself.

Demi Moore

Margaret Qualley

Obviously, this will backfire. It’s not even a spoiler. Although the way there might be longer and not so straight as you first might think. Och maybe it is? The Substance, as the drug is called, has very clear instructions. The most important part is that you must alternate between your new self and old self every seven days. You know what will happen. It’s just like when you should feed your Mowgai after midnight. Of course, that will happen. It’s like a Greek myth. You know you shouldn’t, so you will do it.

The Substance is a slow-paced horror movie and way too long for its own good. There are parts of it that are really good, scary, disgusting, and hilarious. But as a whole, it takes far too long to make its point! It seems to be more busy making social commentary on our society than the actual important things. I mean that the comments might be important, but if the result is a boring movie, no one has the energy to see it, then you made the wrong priorities.

Dennis Quaid

As I said, everything will backfire, and it’s obvious from the beginning. They should’ve cut at least 30 minutes from this to make it really watchable. I must say that I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for a very long time. About halfway through, it was still pretty decent. Slow, but decent. But it takes way too long to get to the point! I ended up with a less-than-average rating, to say the least.

The acting is good. The story is interesting in theory and the special effects are stunning most of the time. But the soul of The Substance is taken away. It becomes uninteresting and, frankly, a pain to finish watching. I don’t know if they aimed at doing a clever body horror story. But the clever part got lost and many of the most grotesque scenes are so boring…