Coralie Fargeat's film "The Substance," which she directed and wrote, drenched audiences in a staggering amount of bright red blood – reportedly using a total of 20,000 liters.
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03-03, 2025Behind the gore lies a profound story about Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a fading television fitness instructor who, in order to maintain her influence and visibility, turns to black market drugs to combat the loathsome men in power.
This gives birth to the beautiful and pliant Sue (Margaret Qualley), who emerges from Elizabeth's back in a disturbingly subversive take on childbirth. To maintain the balance of "The Substance," the two must take turns appearing in public, or face disastrous consequences.
Of course, disaster does strike. After 140 minutes of buildup, Fargeat unflinchingly hurls various internal organs at the screen, from decaying body parts to the most disrespectful ways of consuming seafood, culminating in a gory climax. Fargeat tosses around chunks of meat, lumps, and corpses with the casualness of a cat toying with its freshly caught prey.
"The Substance" isn't the kind of film one expects to see alongside biopics on the list of nominees for the Best Picture Oscar. But this past January, there it was, hot on the heels of [a drama about papal succession, Conclave](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-17/conclave-review-fiennes-tucci-lithgow-rossellini/104781242) and [the three-hour World War II epic The Brutalist](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-28/the-brutalist-review/104851204).
The film also garnered four other nominations, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Fargeat, and Best Actress for Moore, the lead actress.
Ultimately, the film only won one Academy Award, which was awarded to Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, and Marine Scariot for their outstanding makeup and hairstyling.
Despite missing out on the major awards, the recognition of "The Substance" at the Oscars remains a landmark moment, significant not only for horror films but also for the women who have claimed the genre as their own.
The Oscars aren't known for favoring horror. In the Academy Awards' 97-year history, only eight horror films have been nominated for Best Picture. Only one has won: 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs."
Jessica Balanzategui, a senior lecturer in media and writer at RMIT, told ABC Entertainment, "Horror has traditionally been seen as one of the 'lowest' genres – a kind of pulpy, commercial genre that isn't usually worthy of awards or mainstream critical acclaim."
"Horror is a genre associated with sensory and basic emotional pleasures (or displeasures), like being startled, shocked, disgusted, and scared. Therefore, the genre isn't often considered as intellectual or highbrow as typical award-winning fare."
But "The Substance" is more than just a pure horror film; it's also a body horror film – a subgenre so extreme that it's almost never associated with "Academy acclaim."
Over the years, the subgenre has received sporadic recognition, such as David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of "The Fly," a body horror masterpiece that successfully won the Oscar for Best Makeup that year (an award "The Substance" also won on Monday). But never has there been such high recognition as "The Substance" has received.
Balanzategui said, "Body horror is a subgenre that revels in the extremes that give horror its reputation for being lowbrow: violence, brutal violation and distortion of the human body, and sensory overload designed to force audiences to experience primal disgust."
"The Substance" isn't even one of the milder body horror films, featuring scenes of chicken legs being pulled from navels and bodies undergoing foamy transformations.
Even without winning Best Picture, "The Substance" will go down in history as the first body horror film to be nominated for the Academy's highest honor.
Balanzategui said, "Hopefully, the success of 'The Substance' can usher in a new era of thoughtful, conceptually complex body horror films, because this subgenre has a unique ability to allow us to question social norms in a way that is felt viscerally."
Barbara Creed has been a leading scholar in feminist horror theory for decades, publishing her landmark book "The Monstrous-Feminine" in 1993, which categorized and critiqued the characteristics of female characters in horror films.
In 2022, Creed published a sequel in the form of "The Monstrous-Feminine Returns," in which she argued that the role of women, both in front of and behind the camera in horror films, has changed dramatically.
Creed said, "Since about 2000, more and more women have started directing films. So much so that I actually call it a new wave of feminist cinema – and a lot of these women are directing horror films."
"While not classic horror films, one of the main characteristics of this new wave of horror is that it is very cross-genre. Female directors are very flexible; they draw on horror and a mix of familiar dramas, sci-fi films, or road movies."
Creed said that "The Substance's" breakthrough at the Oscars this year is the culmination of a long-building wave. She pointed to groundbreaking films such as Jennifer Kent's "The Babadook" and Fargeat's own "Revenge" as heavy rumbles before "The Substance's" success. But she also includes Emerald Fennell's "Promising Young Woman" – which directly addresses rape and sexual assault – in this category.
She said, "I think these films deal with the horror of everyday life, which is just as terrifying as the horror of the supernatural world."
"The Substance" has proven itself to be not only a critical success but also a commercial one, earning $77 million (AU$123 million) at the box office on a modest budget of $15 million.
But it almost didn't exist.
In the film's third act, as Elizabeth and Sue fight for control, they merge into a disgusting, amorphous mass of flesh, which the film's title card names "Monster ElizSue." It has prominent teeth, a bulbous head, and Elizabeth's screaming face embedded in its back, and it is ElizSue who unleashes the bloody carnage at the film's conclusion. It is the ultimate victory of rebellion.
The film was originally slated for distribution by major studio Universal Pictures, but when Fargeat showed her cut to three Universal executives, two of the male executives hated the ostentatious ending. [One of them demanded that it be removed completely](https://www.lepoint.fr/pop-culture/clashs-avec-demi-moore-tensions-sur-le-plateau-les-coulisses-mouvementees-du-film-the-substance-23-05-2024-2560928_2920.php#11). But Fargeat had negotiated a binding final cut clause, giving her final say over the film.
Unable to get their way, Universal Pictures dropped the film, leaving it in limbo until independent distributor Mubi picked it up.
Balanzategui said, "Some men still seem to have a hard time shaking the assumption that films are made for them and speak specifically to them as the default audience."
"Especially in a genre like horror that has long been associated with male audiences."
Creed witnessed firsthand the impact "The Substance" had on female audiences. Last year, she was invited to participate in a Q&A after a screening of the film in Melbourne.
Creed said, "It sold out in about a week; understandably, the cinema was almost entirely full of young women."
"They loved the film because it spoke to their own experiences, about how they are forced to feel that their bodies are not good enough, and how they have to manipulate, change, remodel, and find another body."
She believes that "The Substance's" recognition at the Oscars indicates a shift in power and perspective in art, as well as in who gets to create art.
Creed said, "The film is a comprehensive exploration of women, exploring how society views women's bodies, how they view their own bodies, and how women's bodies are affected by the male gaze."
"So I think it's an important development in terms of awards, and it's being recognized."
Balanzategui hopes that mainstream appreciation for subversive horror films like "The Substance" will have a broad impact on female filmmakers.
"We live in a very strange, angry, and unstable time, and I'm sure that in response, women will continue to express their anger – and their power – through horror films."
