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 reports of audiences 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 gory (literally) details, spoilers will follow.
Moore's character, Elizabeth Sparkle, makes use of a secret cloning procedure and the titular substance to produce a younger, more perfect 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 decides not to wake Sparkle up, and 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 without the serum, she takes the drastic measure of injecting the one-use-only Activator. This creates a grotesque "Ellie-Sue" hybrid, who makes her way to the studio and eventually disintegrates in a jaw-dropping bloodbath.
"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 it out on the big screen? Let us know in the comments section down below.