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‘The Substance’ Review: An Excellent Demi Moore Helps Sustain Coralie Fargeat’s Stylish but Redundant Body Horror

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‘The Substance’ Review: An Excellent Demi Moore Helps Sustain Coralie Fargeat’s Stylish but Redundant Body Horror

Not long into Coralie Fargeat’s campy body horror The Substance, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is unceremoniously fired from her gig as the celebrity host of a daytime exercise program. The former actress’ credentials — an Academy Award, a prominent place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — aren’t enough to save her Zumba-meets-Jillian-Michaels-style show, fittingly called Sparkle Your Life. Her producer, an oily personality conspicuously named Harvey (Dennis Quaid), wants to replace Elisabeth with a younger, more beautiful star. In his words: “This is network TV, not charity.” 

The Substance, which premiered at Cannes in competition, is Fargeat’s second feature. It builds on the director’s interest in the disposability of women in a sexist society, a theme she first explored in her hyper-stylized and gory 2017 thriller Revenge. She gave that film a subversive feminist bent by turning the trophy girlfriend — a sunny blonde who is raped and murdered — into a vengeance-seeking hunter.

The Substance

The Bottom Line

Uneven genre offering boosted by formal ambition and Demi Moore.

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Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
Cast: Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid, Margaret Qualley
Director-screenwriter: Coralie Fargeat

2 hours 20 minutes

In The Substance, a woman also takes fate into her own hands and combats underestimation, only this time she’s at war with herself, too. Fargeat combines sci-fi elements (as in her early short Reality+) with body horror and satire to show how women are trapped by the dual forces of sexism and ageism. Beauty and youth are the targets at the heart of this film, but the director also takes aim at Hollywood’s ghoulish machinations and the compulsive physical and psychological intrusiveness of cisgender heterosexual men. 

Fargeat flaunts an exciting hyperactive style. Ultra wide-angle shots, close-ups and a bubble-gum color palette contribute to the film’s surreal — and at times uncanny — visual language. The British composer Raffertie’s thunderous score adds an appropriately ominous touch, especially during moments of corporeal mutilation. 

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There’s a lot going on in The Substance, and while the ambition is admirable, not everything works. The thin plotting strains under the weight of its 2 hour 20 minute runtime; there are scenes, especially in the middle of the film, that land as leaden repetition instead of clever mirroring. But strong performances — especially from Moore and Quaid — help sustain momentum through the film’s triumphantly amusing end.

During his final meeting with Elisabeth, Harvey doubles down on his offensiveness. By the time women reach the age of 50, he suggests to Elisabeth while stuffing his mouth with shrimp, it’s over for them. Fargeat heightens the perversity of Harvey’s blunt assessment with shots of his mouth masticating on shellfish bits. As he crushes the coral-colored creatures with his molars, Elisabeth stares at him with a faint disgust bordering on hatred. Quaid’s character lives in the more satirical notes of The Substance, and the actor responds with an appropriately mocking performance.

Harvey’s words, coupled with the blank stares Elisabeth now receives from passersby, drive the actress to seek a solution. She reaches out to the anonymous purveyors of The Substance, a program that allows people to essentially clone a younger version of themselves. While Fargeat’s screenplay leaves much to be desired when it comes to conveying the company’s scale of operations or how they function in her version of Los Angeles, the rules of the experiment are straightforward. After individuals spawn their duplicates, it’s critical they maintain a balanced life. Every 7 days one of them enters a coma, kept alive through a feeding tube, while the other roams free. Then they switch. The catch, of course, is the addiction of youth. 

Elisabeth and her younger self (Margaret Qualley), Sue, follow the program rules for a bit. The middle of The Substance is packed with scenes underscoring the difference in treatment they receive. While Sue blossoms, winning the affection of Harvey and getting her own exercise show, Elisabeth languishes in the shadow of her invisibility.

Moore imbues her character with a visceral desperation, one that enriches the unsettling undercurrents of Fargeat’s film. She plays a woman who can’t quit the addiction of having youth at her fingertips despite its lacerating effect on her psyche. In one particularly strong scene, Elisabeth, haunted by a giant billboard of Sue outside her window, struggles to leave the house for a date. She tirelessly redoes her makeup and each attempt reveals the layers of anguish behind the actress’s pristine facade. 

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Moore leans into the physical requirements of her role later in the film. Elisabeth eventually learns that upsetting the balance of the experiment reduces her vitality. Sue, greedier for more time outside the coma, becomes a kind of vampire, and Elisabeth wilts. Moore’s slow walk and hunched shoulders add to the sense of her character’s suffering. Special makeup effects by Pierre-Olivier Persin render Elisabeth’s withering even more startling and persuasive.  

Qualley does not have as meaty a role as Moore. Her character functions as Elisabeth’s foil, seeming to exist only to help us understand the perversion of Hollywood’s gaze on the starlet. That’s a shame, because The Substance’s smart premise and direction promise more revelatory confrontations between Elisabeth and Sue than the one we are offered.

The reality of this experiment is that it traps both characters in the same toxic, self-hating cycle as the standards imposed by society. The most compelling parts of The Substance deal with how social conventions turn women against themselves. A stronger version of the film might have dug into the complexities of that truth, instead of simply arranging itself around it. 

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Movie Reviews

Sundance 2025: all the latest movie reviews and updates from the festival

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Sundance 2025: all the latest movie reviews and updates from the festival

A new year means a new Sundance Film Festival, and a fresh crop of promising original features that could go on to become awards season darlings in a few months. It might be hard to top last year’s festival where Dìdi, A Different Man, and I Saw the TV Glow all made strong showings. But with films like Atropia, Bubble & Squeak, and Didn’t Die on the roster, this year’s Sundance might just do the trick.

Naturally, The Verge is going to be taking in as much of Sundance as we can and posting bite-sized reviews of everything we see. We’ll also be posting longer reviews and sharing trailers, and you can follow along here to keep up with all of the news out of the festival.

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Bobby Canipe Jr’s ‘GRANDMA’ (2024) – Movie Review – PopHorror

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Bobby Canipe Jr’s ‘GRANDMA’ (2024) – Movie Review – PopHorror

I not very familiar with Shot On Video Horror, only recently being introduced to it through the films of Brewce Longo. My latest foray into SOV horror is Bobby Canipe Jr’s Grandma.

Synopsis

Dive into the blood-soaked nostalgia of ’90s shot-on-video horror with Grandma, Directed by Bobby Canipe Jr.  This terrifying retro tale follows a young woman who inherits a countryside bed-and-breakfast with a chilling secret. The original owner, known only as “Grandma,” was a deranged serial killer (Josh Allman) who transformed her unfortunate guests into gruesome meals. As renovations unfold, the house’s horrific past reawakens, and the new owner (Anna Clary) and her friends (Angel Bradford, Kelsey Baker) must face the grisly return of Grandma’s deadly legacy.

Grandma was written and directed by Bobby Canipe Jr (Amityville Ripper). The film stars Anna Clary (Coffintooth), Angel Bradford (Crackcoon), Kelsey Baker (Red Light District Shark Attack), Ryan Carpenter, Hunter Redfern (Jeffrey’s Hell), Ryan Martel (Bad Girls), Cagney Larkin (Karate Ghost), Bartley Bess, and Josh Allman (Amityville Ripper).

What Worked For Me

I really enjoyed the cast here. Anna Clary, Angel Bradford and Kelsey Baker made the core trio of characters likable and it made me want to root for them. In addition to the core trio, I really enjoyed Ryan Martel and Cagney Larkin as the redneck fruit sellers. Their characters added a lot of humor to their scenes. I also enjoyed Hunter Redfern, who plays a redneck who has a habit of showing up at the B&B the girls are fixing up.

The film kind of feels like a modern gore centered take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There was one kill scene in particular that felt like it was directly influenced by a kill from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The killer, Grandma, was a really unsettling character. Her mannerisms and vocalizations were pretty creepy. The kills are pretty sadistic in nature, with one in particular being incredibly gruesome with a twisted sense of humor.

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What Didn’t Work For Me 

I would have liked to have a little more backstory on Grandma and her family. It felt like we were given just enough to move the story along and I personally would have liked a little more development. I also wasn’t a big fan of the ending, though that has more to do with my personal preferences.

Final Thoughts

Grandma is a solid shot on video indie slasher film with a great cast and some gruesome kills. Recommended.

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‘Sally’ Review: A Refreshingly Clear-Eyed Documentary Weaves Together the Professional and Personal Lives of NASA Pioneer Sally Ride

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‘Sally’ Review: A Refreshingly Clear-Eyed Documentary Weaves Together the Professional and Personal Lives of NASA Pioneer Sally Ride

When Sally Ride died in 2012, she was praised as the first American woman in space, but there was much more to the story. Her obituaries let the world know a secret she had long held, that she and a woman named Tam O’Shaughnessy had been life partners for 27 years. Those same obituaries often ignored or minimized the jaw-dropping sexism Ride faced when she entered the first class of NASA astronauts to include women in 1978.

In the richly detailed Sally, Cristina Costantini reveals both personal and professional aspects of Ride’s life, showing how they were intertwined. With O’Shaughnessy as the central narrator, the documentary includes eye-opening interviews with family members and former astronauts and archival video of Ride herself, to create an engaging, socially relevant portrait of an American heroine and of the culture.

Sally

The Bottom Line

Affecting and socially relevant.

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Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)
Director: Cristina Costantini
Screenwriters: Cristina Costantini, Tom Maroney

1 hour 43 minutes

It also displays a refreshing and rare quality for a documentary with such access: Without for a minute undermining Ride’s importance, this clear-eyed film doesn’t sugarcoat her sometimes prickly personality.

Although Sally has already won the Alfred P. Sloan prize for a science-themed movie, announced in advance of its Sundance Film Festival premiere, it doesn’t dwell on the details of space travel. (Costantini previously won the Festival Favorite Award in 2018 for Science Fair, co-directed with Darren Foster.) With a wealth of period video footage, the movie emphasizes the frequently condescending attention Ride and the five other women in her NASA class encountered.

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Costantini’s astute choice of clips shines a light on the culture at the time in all its sexism and homophobia. As Ride says, “The only bad moments in our training involved the press.” Kathy Sullivan, who was in Ride’s training class, describes the press posing stereotypical questions about romance, makeup and family to the the groundbreaking women astronauts.

Ride had no patience for such silly questions. Sitting alongside male astronauts at a press conference, she is asked if she plans to be the first mother in space. She just shakes her head and laughs. A female reporter’s voice inquires from offscreen, “Do you think that you are as good as any male astronaut here?” On camera, when a reporter refers to her Miss Ride, she replies that he can address her as either Dr. Ride or Sally, but not “Miss.” And behind the scenes, NASA had no idea what personal hygiene items to pack for a woman in space. “NASA engineers, in their infinite wisdom, designed a makeup kit,” Ride remarks. They also asked her how many tampons she might need for a one-week flight: Would 100 be enough?

John Fabian, another classmate, remembers Ride as unemotional and hard to read, recounting, “Her personality was all business.” Part of that demeanor came naturally and part of it was because she was so closeted. Sally goes a long way toward explaining both. In 1981, while Ride was in the training program, Billie Jean King was sued by a female ex-lover for financial support. Both King, who lost endorsements and had to play huge legal fees, and Ride’s sister, Bear Ride, suggest that King’s experience was a cautionary tale for Ride: She saw that she would pay a huge professional price if she were open about her sexuality.

She was often emotionally closed off in her private life, too. O’Shaughnessy’s comments about Ride are endlessly loving, but even she states, “Some of the very characteristics that made her the woman who could break the highest glass ceiling made her tough to be in a relationship with.” Whether sitting in a chair on an otherwise empty set talking to the camera, or in her house looking at letters and gifts from Sally, O’Shaughnessy is a steady presence, warm but unsentimental as she shares that she was heart-broken that Ride refused to go public with their relationship. Her enduring love gives the film its visceral emotional impact.

Some of Costantini’s most revealing interviews are with those who knew Ride best, as when O’Shaughnessy and Bear Ride discuss the buttoned-down family dynamics Sally grew up with. Ride’s mother, interviewed here, is asked if she knew that Sally and Tam were a couple. “Yes but it wasn’t something we talked about,” she responds curtly. Bear Ride relays that Tam was part of their family, but that Sally never spoke about the partnership, even though Bear herself is gay and out.

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Ride was secretive as well with her ex-husband, Steve Hawley, another astronaut in her class whom she married during their training. He affirms that they both went into the marriage “in good faith,” and that up until the time she left five years later, “I suspected but I didn’t know” she was gay. Sullivan recalls that when she heard about the wedding, “One of my first thoughts was, great PR move.”

It was only when Ride was dying of pancreatic cancer that she was able to admit publicly that O’Shaughnessy was her partner. O’Shaughnessy notes that she talked to Ride about what to say about their relationship and Ride left it up to her, so she wrote an obituary acknowledging it.

It’s too bad that that film is marred by visual reenactments throughout. When O’Shaughnessy talks about an intimate dinner, we see two women in a kitchen dining by candlelight. Near the end, there is even a Sally stand-in a hospital bed. There is no dialogue in any of these scenes so they avoid the worst cheesy excesses, but they are distracting and unnecessary.

Sally stands perfectly well without any fussy touches, as an important addition to the record of what we know about a pioneering cultural figure — in all her complexity, ambition and guardedness.

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