The horror genre is booming, just as it should. The last weekend of the October spooky season helped Smile 2 widen its grin and Terrifier 3 soar to become the highest-grossing unrated film of all time. Meanwhile, Shudder is on a roll with films like Daddy’s Head, MadS, Oddity, and Azrael. And on Halloween, The Substance, likely the decade’s goriest body-horror experiment, hits streaming courtesy of Mubi.
If you didn’t catch The Substance during its theatrical run, good news: It’s still playing on the big screen, where you can witness Margaret Qualley spawning from Demi Moore’s ripped-open back in all its splatter-scene glory. (That sequence is the film’s opening act, in case that sounded like a spoiler.) Writer-director Coralie Fargeat (Revenge) starts with that memorable image, then pushes, pushes, and pushes the premise to explore the damage incurred by one actor’s pursuit for eternal youth.
The Substance’s closing act makes for the perfect last-minute Halloween costume — even if more people than ever will see it for the first time on Halloween. Here’s how to be hip this Oct. 31.
[Ed. note: I’m about to spoil important parts of The Substance, so don’t peek unless you’re in the know or desperate to look cool on Halloween.]
After her initial injection of the carefully marketed titular green goo, Hollywood-starlet-turned-workout-TV-host Elisabeth Sparkle gives sudden-spinal-explosion birth to “Sue” (Margaret Qualley), who eventually starts deteriorating and decides to take her own shot of the Substance. The overdose transforms the “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of Elisabeth into a warped mutation of both women. “Monstro Elisasue” has a melty face, breasts and one bent arm drooping out of her shoulder, and an entire Elisabeth Sparkle face stuck in a silent scream on her back. But Sue’s planned New Year’s Eve show must go on, so Monstro Elisasue takes the stage in an improvised Elisabeth Sparkle mask, hoping that no one will notice. Everyone notices.
A Cronenbergian creature ripping Moore’s face off a poster, smearing some lipstick across her mouth, and strapping it onto her misshapen body is a hilarious crossing of the T on Fargeat and her leading lady’s puncturing of Hollywood beauty. The shoddiness of Monstro Elisasue’s Sparkle mask also gives everyone permission to half-ass their own look on Halloween. Mubi is ready to help: Ahead of the holiday, the distributor wisely issued a version of the Elisabeth mask that adoring Substance fans can cut out and tie around their own faces.
Will anyone in your neighborhood get the reference? Only the righteous. Even if the clueless think you’re dressed up as Lady Gaga from Joker: Folie à Deux, that’s OK. We know you are the cool one. You have seen The Substance. And they’ll get it eventually when the film premieres on Mubi on Halloween.
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