I don't know what they put in the water for 2024 horror movies but is it just me or are we just getting like Banger after Banger So today we're of course talking about the substance which I have been excited for ever since they announced it because it looked like a really cool unique body horror then of course I got sick and I couldn't see it opening weekend and all I saw was everyone talking about it and like how mindblowing it was and how incredible it was and I was just sick and I was like oh
man I want to see that so bad so I apologize this video so late I would have reviewed it sooner if I could have so the substance follows Elizabeth Sparkle who is renowned for an aerobic show and faces a devastating blow on her 50th birthday as her boss fires her amid her distress a laboratory offers her a substance which promises to transform her into an enhanced version of herself so this is of course a body horror written and directed by coraly far I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly she also directed Revenge which was another popular
movie when it came out so I think the substance is a perfect balance of fun and horrifying it's obviously a body horror and I will say if you are sensitive to that you cannot watch this movie this is one of the most body horror body horror movies I've ever seen but it feels so unique like I could see some maybe Inspirations or you know there were certain scenes that definitely reminded me of other movies but I really felt like what coraly did with this movie felt very unique for the genre and like she did something
different that we haven't seen before or haven't really seen in a while and I'll talk more about which movies it kind of felt like and do some comparisons uh in spoilers because obviously I need to talk a little bit about this ending of this movie because the last 30 minutes or so are wild like everyone is saying and I just I really enjoyed the viewing experience of this movie it is 2 hours and 20 minutes um it did not feel like that for 1 second like it never felt like it dragged on at all at
least for me I've seen some comments say that but I just don't know how you could really think that cuz this movie changes all the time every time there's like a shift that happens it's even more mindblowing and then it goes even further and gets more intense and it just like keeps I'm just always so curious of what is going to happen next it's like that constant anticipation and the suspense of what we're about to see on the screen like how could they top that how could they move from that like what where are they
going to go next if they've already gone there I found Demi Moore Margaret qu and Dennis Quaid to be perfect casting for this movie I mean Margaret KW and Demi Moore very much look alike I think and so I thought that was perfect casting for you know Margaret to play like the better version I guess of Elizabeth another thing that I really enjoyed about my viewing experience with this movie is how I felt every single emotion throughout this movie process that's why it feels like such a unique movie despite it feeling kind of inspired it
just was so interesting because you would feel anger at one point of how Elizabeth is treated or how women in general are viewed by men specifically and that pressure from society about aging and things so you feel like this anger but then that also leads to sadness there are some you know tragic scenes in this movie that are very emotional and those really hit for me personally and then of course you have the disgust the the shock horror of what we're looking at just like the body horror and then there were even moments where I
was laughing at this movie at either how ridiculous it was or just how weird the characters were like I thought some scenes were funny so I just kind of went through like the whole inside Outcast up in my head like the whole uh spectrum of emotion while watching this movie which I really enjoy when a horror movie specifically can foster those kind of emotions and not just horror or fear or you can tell that they're not just catering to making your heart rate raise you know it's not just jump scares it's it's a whole plethora
of emotions going on here and that really adds to the beauty of this the story that is going on as well not just the body horror and I really wanted to emphasize that because I really enjoyed the kind of social commentary aspect of this movie and the the backstory and the character of Elizabeth Sparkle and her desperation I it really resonated with me personally so I really really enjoyed that aspect of this movie of course A lot of people are going to take away just the disgusting body Horror in this and like the the shocking
body horror which of course this has um but I I really wanted to underline the emotional aspect of the backstory of this movie so not only did this movie have great commentary and just like a great portrayal and symbolism of aging and beauty and society's pressure and everything like that but it was also beautifully shot okay we need to talk about the cinematography and the color choices for this movie it was a beautiful film did it lean a little bit more artistic than realistic definitely it is more of an artsy style film and I don't
even mean that as like a negative it's not a negative that this is more artistic um it it's all it all works together and really adds to the beauty of the movie and I love that it's like juxtaposed with this horrific imagery we're viewing this beautiful hallway with like this disturbing scene like I just think it's really a a cool balance this whole movie is about balancing I feel fun and horrifying Beauty and disgusting uh body horror like I just loved all of it and like obviously the the commentary with the horror as well like
it all just works together so the surprising and shock factor of this movie isn't necessarily where the story goes because I do I did find that each time like as the story progressed it became a little bit more predictable like you knew certain things were going to come back and things story lines were going to be utilized and you kind of saw like the direction that the story was going to go but but what was shocking about this movie and like the surprising nature was how far it chose to go because I could not have
anticipated it going to that level so many times when uh interesting or like a climactic scene would happen I'm like oh that's what everyone's talking about and then it would just the movie would just keep going and I'm like oh that's what everyone's talk that has to be what people are talking about and then it would go again and there' be another scene it's like oh my God that's what people are talk like it would just get more and more intense the longer the movie went on and I was like how are we going to
Top This like where are we going from here so the storywise you kind of knew where it was going to pan out and like how things were going to take place but you just didn't know what were going to visually be seeing on the screen or like how far they were going to take things all of the Practical effects and the Prosthetics used again this movie is a work of art like this they deserve an award just for the prosthetics alone this movie is so artistically done in such a beautiful way with such a great
message that I love everything about this movie you just have to go along for the ride and the less you know about it before you watch it the better which is why I do not recommend watching the rest of this video because I'm going to get into spoilers and talk about every intense scene that was in the movie um but again if you don't like body horror and you're not going to watch it feel free to watch the rest of the video and I will explain it to you but you know it will be disgusting
so just here's your warning so let's get into spoilers firstly this movie is inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar wild and there are certain aspects of this movie that you can see in relation to that with like the big picture of Elizabeth Sparkle and things I personally have never read the book so I don't know specifics like even more than that but it was kind of broken down on IMDb if you're curious but that being said it really remind me especially in the end of The Thing by John Carpenter is one of
my favorite horror movies of all time because of the Practical effects and the Prosthetics and that um where it's just iconic and this movie does a lot of the same thing it also feels very similar like how Elizabeth Elizabeth transforms in the end and obviously how Elizabeth ensue morph together and become this thing very thing inspired it seemed um I don't know if it actually was was but it just it read a lot like thing to me and then also with the final scene well one of the final scenes uh Carrie it very much reminded
me of like the thing means Carrie which is I think a great description of this movie at least for like the the vibe of the ending of this movie so let's talk about my favorite things about this movie that are all spoilers that I couldn't talk about before um firstly being birthed out of her back that was genius uh I haven't really seen that happen in this kind of body horror because obviously we've seen body horror done before and I just haven't seen a movie really do that where the newly refreshed thing uh just is
birthed out of the back that was an intense scene and to start there I was like I don't know where this movie is going to go because that was already really intense I loved the image of the eye splitting where the new Iris was in her eye and then like the eye like it was so cool the the visuals in this um and like the way the concept was executed was so cool it was fascinating and then of course we know that Sue is going to want to be spending more time in her world than
you know she is allowed to so it's 7 Days on 7 days off they switch every seven days so they each get to live in the world however Sue decides to take a little bit of stabilizing fluid out of Elizabeth's back which I'm pretty sure was spinal fluid which is foul um and that was you know very disgusting so of course she's going to extend her time and the first time she does it it takes life or beauty I don't really know but you know takes the the the life out of Elizabeth's when she finally
you know when they finally transfer and Elizabeth wakes up and her fingers rotting because they she extended the time one thing I was kind of left confused by is if they shared a true like Consciousness because they would wake up and be surprised at the other's actions and I thought possibly they had like some shared Consciousness and then some not so it I wasn't 100% sure how it worked um but I just had suspension of disbelief it's like sure whatever they have two different brains maybe that kind of work is one sometimes so that'd be
my only criticism is that that wasn't necessarily always clear to me if they shared a Consciousness or not anyway but this scene where she extends it for a night uh really sets up the idea perfectly because you know that's going to come back you know as soon as she's offered the hosting gig for the New Year's Eve party that that is where things are going to go down you know she's about to extend in order to do that and then she ends up extending for three whole months which is just a wild concept because you
don't actually see Elizabeth within the other room you just see Sue walking in there to get more spinal fluid I was just blown away by that concept um because that's so disturbing to think about because then you're like what is Elizabeth going to look like right now like is she just going to be like an old woman I thought she could it was going to go like the route of pearl in X where it was MIA goth and a lot of Prosthetics to make her look old I thought it was going to be like that
um no it she was way worse than I could have ever imagined I don't even think that they exploited old people for the sake of shock horror like sub movies do like they kind of did in X I feel like they did it in a way that was clearly she's transforming into like a monster you know she's deformed because of Sue using her spinal fluid until infection and there's just like this infection rotting her body and of course time being taken away from her and just her bones the the knee the knee scene with the
leg there were so many scenes that scene the chicken scene the chicken scene so then Elizabeth of course decides to terminate and we also knew this was going to go that route because she calls to end it but then she decides last second no I'm not actually going to do that um but then you know of course she does eventually get the termination kit she puts like half of the fluid into Sue's heart somehow this wakes her up and they're both awake and then again I knew that there was going to be some time where
they would probably battle each other um and that is exactly what happened again I didn't think it would be that intense with like the mirror and the face you know uh that was a lot anything with like head you know that that really gets to me and so that is the scene where I was like oh that's what everyone's talking about like that's a cool fight scene it's kind of intense with the face and then obviously Elizabeth is like this deformed thing um so that was weird but then it just gets even more weird it
just keeps going it gets even more intense and Sue uh shows up to the New Year's Eve party to host and her teeth fall out actually she pulls she pulls her teeth out and I feel like everyone collectively in the theater is like please don't can you can you just stop doing that can you can you stop pulling your teeth out that would be great your nails coming off you know they're just putting every kind of body horror into this movie Man needles also if you're afraid of needles at all this isn't going to be
your movie so while she's desperate you know her she's falling apart basically because she ran out of stabilizer fluid Elizabeth is now dead and she has nothing to restore her and her body is shutting down so she goes back home uh which again timeline wise I feel like she had no time to do that but sure you know again suspension of disbelief sure she shows up on time later um not sure about the timeline there but anyway she goes back home injects the activator again she still has the activator and this of course transforms her
into a mutated version of Sue and Elizabeth Elizabeth pops up again hey girl um just on on the back I will never get that image out of my head I think of this transformed being and she still wants to feel beautiful she puts her dress back on and she shows up to the new to the New Year's party to host you know she births a boob yeah um that that happens and then the scene of her drenching the audience in the blood it just felt very Cary you know and I I thought that was really
iconic for coraly to do that in the end I I loved that scene with the music it was so intense and your just your jaws on the floor like what am I even watching right now like if anybody were to come in not knowing this movie at all would be like what is that and then I really like the full circle ending of Elizabeth uh detaching from this thing and you know ending up on her star and just decomposing onto her star and just you know looking up at the palm trees and just feeling content
I feel like she was content in that moment and I really liked that full circle moment and it also really reminded us that one day we're here and then we're not you know she just like kind of disintegrated they cleaned her up and then she was gone and her star was just walked on and she was forgotten and I feel like that's just a great ending message for this movie no matter how you're how beautiful you are how Society portrays or sees you or whatever we all get to that stage of life where we all
die you know and we all get old regardless of how much work you do or if you inject an activator or not we're we're all going to get there we're all going to get there in the end and I liked that Sue seemed perfect but she was not immune to becoming a monster but Sue was not immune and you know it's all it's coming for us all age and death and all of it it's just I really liked that that pointed message in the end and it really worked for me and I thought it was
a great way to end this movie so this movie just had everything that it really needed um to work as a story commentary horror as a horror movie alone like obviously it was effective so I just really loved everything about this movie I thought it was beautiful so well done so beautifully done artistic stunning everything about it was great I would love to hear your thoughts of course on the substance if you've seen it uh leave your comments down below I hope you enjoyed my review and I will talk to you very soon bye [Music]
