phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2024

The Substance



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2024
Runtime: 2h 21m
Country: UK, France
Language: English
Genre Tags: Drama, Horror
Plot Summary: A fading celebrity takes a black-market drug: a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Darkly comic exploration of the lengths some people will go for surface perfection. Self-destruction is preferred to looking like a aged monster, which ironically turns you into a literal monster. Bravura filmmaking and visual storytelling. The design work and cinematography are impeccable. Moore and Qualley give deeply committed performances. Assuming you're not delusion like characters are, nobody's behavior will surprise you, but you will be surprised by the Grand Guignol heights the movie takes everything to. Every time I thought the water couldn't get any hotter, the pot boiled over into another glorious mess.


Outside Reviews:

Monica Castillo
3.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Feeling crushed by impossible beauty standards and society’s hyperfixation on youth is nothing new. But Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” arrives in the wake of the Ozempic era, when a quick shot promises weight loss that seemed impossible to achieve without going under the knife just a few years ago. In my social media feed, the ads offer the chance to “feel like your old self again” and to give it a try for cheap and see fast results. Tempting, isn’t it? The parallels between GLP-1 weight-loss drugs to the movie’s aforementioned substance end there. But Fargeat, who wrote and directed the film, twists the search for a “fountain of youth” shot into a blood-and-neon drenched spectacle.