"The Substance" is the horror movie everyone's going to be talking about as 2024 comes to a close. Join us as we get ahead of the conversation about this wholly unexpected, Demi Moore-starring tour de force.
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00:00What's up everybody, Griffey here with the Looper equivalent of a political ad, except
00:04instead of money and time, I'm asking you to go see the most beautiful, wonderful, lubed-up
00:10fever dream of a movie this year.
00:12Ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about The Substance, and I'm gonna try to do this
00:16without spoiling anything.
00:19People always ask for something new, it's inevitable.
00:24For those of you who are absolute horror fanatics like myself, you know that we've been in
00:29a golden age of horror in the past handful of years, right?
00:32Starting with your Hereditaries, The Rise of A24, The Rise of Neon.
00:36I feel like this year in particular, 2024, something very special is going on.
00:41I feel like this is a year we're going to look back and say that was the start of something
00:46very, very special.
00:47This year we've gotten so many unique, wild, hyper-stylized movies with the likes of Cuckoo,
00:53First Omen, Long Legs, Strange Darling, The Substance.
00:58These are the kind of movies that make you feel like you are strapped in your seat.
01:01Like a not-so-sad version of Clockwork Orange, the best horror movies always come from a
01:05very specific point of view that lets the audience really sink into the tear.
01:10This group of movies this year are really latching onto this female body horror idea.
01:15So these are not final girls traditionally shown in horror movies.
01:19These are women that are running from real terrifying nightmares in themselves.
01:23There are many great body horror movies, right?
01:25From The Thing to The Fly, every single nightmare David Cronenberg has ever given us.
01:30That's true.
01:31I think what the body horror of today is doing is adding such an extra personal layer to it.
01:37We're really getting the distortion and mutation of the emotional self that really is mirroring
01:42and matching the physical self, which is giving these movies extra impact.
01:47These are the kind of movies you don't watch.
01:48These are the kind of movies you survive.
01:51The Substance is a movie about an aging actress played by Demi Moore.
01:55She finds out that the men in the company think she's no longer hot enough to continue
02:00doing her spandex-clad workout show.
02:02This leads her to a drug called The Substance.
02:05She takes said substance, and all of a sudden she gets access to her Hollywood career again.
02:11And lo and behold, madness ensues.
02:14The Substance essentially is a drug kit that allows you to inject yourself.
02:17This gives birth from Demi Moore's body to a younger actress played by Margaret Qualley.
02:23Some of the most brutal things in the show are just watching Demi Moore look at her body
02:27and find no value there, leading her to take this drug that she knows nothing about.
02:32The Substance comes in a box that has less instructions than an Ikea, and she just starts
02:37jamming it in her body at the very thought that someone might find value in her again.
02:43And that leads to a real devastating streak of horror scenes in this movie, right?
02:47When I tell you that the transformation scenes in this will rival any werewolf scene you've
02:52ever seen, this is absolute horrifying nightmare fuel.
02:57As she takes the drugs and gives birth to this younger, more attractive version, you
03:02watch as these two women, a woman who's at the end of her road based on age, begins to
03:06hate the actress who's at the start of her journey.
03:09And you watch the younger actress destroying this older body because she has no concept
03:15of what the future might look like.
03:16So not only are we watching Demi Moore suffer in the agony and the horrors of people looking
03:22at you all the time and judging you based on merits that you have very little control
03:26over.
03:27We also watch her turn around and do the same thing to Margaret Qualley, and hate her for
03:32her youth and her vibrance and her potential still before her.
03:35We watch Margaret Qualley hate the woman who literally gives birth to her.
03:40They are connected as one.
03:41We watch her hate this old woman who's taking any of her time away.
03:46These bonded women turning on each other is some of the most brutal things that you'll
03:50see in this movie.
03:52Because they're the only two that can see each other for exactly what they are.
03:56They can see each other's flaws fully laid bare, and that allows them to become so much
04:02more cruel to each other than most horror movie monsters are ever able to become.
04:07I think in a world of content creators and celebrities, we are very familiar with people
04:13that are horrified of the idea of aging, that are horrified with the idea of an imperfection.
04:19It's something that is very common to our culture.
04:21LeBron has hair again.
04:22LeBron just magically got new hair.
04:24This is something that happens all the time.
04:26What this movie does is uses genre elements from sci-fi and horror to give it this really
04:31monstrous fun-to-watch kind of mutation element that really crystallizes the scary headspace
04:39of people who cannot appreciate what they see in the mirror.
04:43And that is real-world scary, right?
04:46Watching bodies mutate and be ripped apart is a classic and fun part of body horror.
04:51But when you add that extra heart and brain underneath, there's more body to hurt.
04:56This movie exists in a perfect place for modern audiences.
05:00This is the, what do we present to the world?
05:03We live in a society today where every bit of value you have comes from a like online
05:07from anonymous strangers.
05:09People have serious mental health problems because people on the internet say they look
05:12like knockoff brand Aquaman.
05:15It's hard to put yourself out there.
05:17This movie weaponizes what has become a benign evil in our world.
05:22The way that we give all of our self-value, everything about us to the world, and then
05:28are shocked when they come back and shit on us and make us feel terrible.
05:31And the way that you internalize that and become your own worst audience, the way that
05:36we thumbs down our own selves, the way we hate ourselves for not being on vacation,
05:42for not having a successful OnlyFans.
05:44Believe me, that happened.
05:45This movie takes the idea, the consumptive nature of the internet, of celebrity culture,
05:52and really shows what it's like when life starts chewing on the flesh and what's left
05:57of us.
05:58A lot of times people throw around the word brave when it comes to acting.
06:02I don't fully believe.
06:03I think it's nonsense.
06:04You're not running into a fire.
06:05But it does take an artistic daring to expose yourself in the world the way Demi Moore has
06:11in this role.
06:12Demi Moore becomes a fascinating actress to play this character, right?
06:15An actress who was often known for her beauty and her sex appeal to audiences makes a perfect
06:22kind of real-life backbone to pin this character on.
06:25And I think this is an absolute success story.
06:29This will be a performance that is remembered for the ages in the horror community.
06:34But the thing audiences will not stop talking about is the finale.
06:38I'm not kidding you when I say the last 30 minutes of this movie are a cinematic experience
06:44you will never, ever be able to scrub from your mind when you watch it.
06:50This is some of the most bizarre imagery that so perfectly sells the symbolic, terrifying
06:56journey we've been on in this film.
06:58The choices are bold and audacious.
07:01The pure, heartbreaking, empathetic moments on top of the bizarre, gonzo energy are so
07:08impossible for me to explain to you without spoiling anything, so I won't do it.
07:14But believe me when I say you will not forget a second of the absolute madness that the
07:20last 30 seconds of The Substance subjects you to.
07:23This is where I have to make an absolute desperate plea to you, the viewer.
07:28Go see this movie in the theater.
07:30Pay the money.
07:31Spend the time.
07:33This is a cinematic drug you will not be able to get out of your body.
07:38Do you want to live in a world where all we get are Madam Webs, whatever the hell Borderlands
07:43was?
07:44Is that the world you want to live in?
07:45Or do you want to see these wild, awesome, amazing, hyper-stylized movies that we have
07:51been getting this year and not enough people are paying to go see?
07:55This movie is playing on almost 2,000 screens.
07:59There is absolutely no reason this thing should not be a box office behemoth.
08:03Please, please, please go see The Substance.
08:06Put this movie in your eyeballs.
08:08Let it rip your back open so you back up.
08:11And let Hollywood know this is the kind of movie we deserve.