The Log: Going Grotesque For Beauty In "The Substance"

Coralie Fargeat playfully Frankensteins allusions to great horror films to recreate the feminine body horror genre.

Have you ever ridden a monster of a roller coaster, and at some point, because you’re upside down or moving at unhuman speed, you regain consciousness and think, “There’s no way that was sleep,” because you experienced a forcible fainting?

That was me in the movie theater seated between two strangers on a Friday night.

Cold sweats. Tingling palms.

I closed my eyes, and the amplified soundscape prolonged this verge-of-passing-out feeling.

No matter how hard you close your eyes against it, The Substance will deliver the grotesque means women will go to be considered beautiful. With career-high performances by Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley who bare all—literally—to show the madness of impossible beauty standards, expect this film to join the early Oscar nomination conversation.

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