Revenge director Coralie Fargeat’s new body horror satire, The Substance, is now in theaters, and it is most definitely not for the squeamish.
The movie - particularly the last 30 minutes or so - contains some of the most extreme gore we've seen in quite some time, and there have been a number of reports of cinemagoers walking out before the end.
The story focuses on an acclaimed actress turned celebrity host of a daytime exercise program (Demi Moore) who gets replaced by a younger star, sparking a confrontation between the two women that ultimately turns violent.
That's the basic outline. If you want the very gory details, spoilers will follow.
Moore's character, Elizabeth Sparkle, makes use of a secret cell replicating procedure and the titular substance to produce a younger version of herself, Sue, played by Margaret Qualley. How is this accomplished? Well, Miss Sparkle "births" her clone through her back in a sequence that's every bit as surreal and squirm-inducing as it sounds.
Essentially two halves of the same person, Elizabeth and Sue soon become rivals, and end up breaking the "week on, week off" rule. Sue gets a taste of fame and decides not to wake Sparkle up, but continues to extract the serum from her body needed to maintain her survival. Elizabeth begins to age rapidly, ultimately becoming a decrepit husk.
When the serum dries up, Sue begins to fall apart (literally), and is forced to wake Liz up, resulting in a brutal fight.
Sue is able to kill her older self, but with no more serum, she takes the drastic measure of injecting what remains of the one-use-only Activator. This creates a grotesque "Ellie-Sue" hybrid creature, who makes her way to the studio and eventually explodes in a jaw-dropping bloodbath.
Only Sparkle's face remains, crawling over to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame before disintegrating.
"Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? You should try this new product: The Substance. It changed my life. With The Substance, you can generate another version of yourself: younger, more beautiful, more perfect… Just share the time. One week for one, one week for the other. A perfect balance of seven days. Easy, isn’t it? If you follow the instructions, what could go wrong?"
Do you plan on checking The Substance out on the big screen? Let us know in the comments section down below.