The Substance
About 25 minutes into The Substance we're introduced to Sue. A younger version of Demi Moore's network television fitness goddess. It's a writhing in pain, blood-stained introduction. I sat there in the dark and thought to myself, "The third act is going to be wild." It was. Because this is a movie of ludicrous escalation.

Sue (Margaret Qualley) is so refreshing she's the condensation on the Coca-Cola can. Her firm buttocks enter the shot several times before she does. Her breasts defy gravity. Everything is tight. But she has the arrogance and appetites of youth. While this movie is positioned as a feminist body horror it is a movie about a parasitic system.

Yes, the movie's men are grotesque. They were in the director's previous genre movie, Revenge, too. But unlike that movie where all the men were abusers. Or this movie where men participate in a abusive system. Women do unforgivable things here.

After a chemical pickup from a dead drop that screams evil life sciences corporation, Sue emerges from Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Sue are one person but must alternate between seven days of active and resting cycles. There are side effects to breaking this rule. You'd have to be dumb like a character in a movie to ignore potential abuse. Abuse here begins with disregard, the resting party left on a cold floor, and slowly progresses to ghoulishness.

Sue transforms from born yesterday wandering to electronic dance music strut in hours. She is not Barbie Mr. Hyde but she is genetically better than Elizabeth and she can be cruel. With seven days of opportunity open to her she gets Elizabeth's old job and takes it to heights the older her could not achieve. While they are one person you know that has to hurt.

Were it the lazy "all men are pigs" trope I'd have tuned out fast. But the nicest character in the movie, a low bar, is an awkward former schoolmate of Elizabeth's who asks her out. This leads to a brilliant scene with Demi Moore later that is her finest work in the movie. It also brings what drives this story into focus.

Focus is something used to make Dennis Quaid's, leering, sleazy, network producer fill the screen. He's ghastly and even more so when he's eating. Sue is his next dish after he exploited Elizabeth's beauty and celebrity to make money for the network's share holders. Sue and Elizabeth have their own relationships with nutrition. It's not healthy.

This world here has many stark block colours and sometimes feels like it's attacking you from the screen. That's intentional. The body horror is disturbing enough to make you wince so it succeeds. The flaw here is that the movie is indulgent and too long. At a bloated two hours twenty minutes the journey to the mania in the third act tested my patience.

This was an uncomfortable but interesting watch. It is a decent body horror movie with a high level of visual gloss that is uncommon. While it is more female than similar movies if you go into it sold on the idea of feminist politics you're in for a rough time. It is a genre movie first.