Get the latest gossip
How The Substance Created the Ultimate Body of Horrors
And turned Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley into one of the year’s best movie monsters.
When Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), a 50-year-old actress turned TV fitness instructor, is fired by a network executive who deems her too old, she makes a Faustian bargain, injecting herself with neon-green plasma that lets her live every other week as a sexy, spotless 20-something named Sue (Qualley). In the script, Fargeat tried to outline Elisasue as vividly as possible, specifically her mismatched body parts — a lopsided head, teeth protruding from her chest, arms askew, Elisabeth’s stunned face bulging from her backside, lots of folds and wrinkles and aberrations. Wanting to use the sort of practical effects that made ’80s horror hits like An American Werewolf in London and The Fly so visceral, Fargeat initially met with prosthetics artists who struggled to conjure her vision.
Or read this on VULTURE