Coralie Fargeat
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Connections, in both directions
Fargeat pays homage to a bathroom from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and the general vibe of her film suggests a meeting of Dr. Strangelove’s humor and the New French Extremity movement’s brutality.
Numerous elements reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining appear on-screen, from patterned carpets and red bathroom walls, all the way to specific shots, but these obvious callbacks serve little thematic purpose beyond recognition.
Fargeat nods to Stanley Kubrick in these early scenes: the blood-red corridor in the TV studio is straight out of The Shining and an omen of oncoming carnage.
She draws heavily on the hallucinatory moment in “The Shining” where Jack Torrance embraces a young woman in a bathtub, only to see her transformed into a cackling old crone. Beyond that, Fargeat‘s images recall the exploding-beast-with-a-writhing-face in John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” the bloodbath prom of “Carrie,” and the addiction-turned-dread of “Requiem for a Dream.”
There are no carriages turning into pumpkins, but a lot of superb horror homages: “Carrie” (1976), “The Shining” (1980), “Doctor Sleep” (2019), “The Brood” (1979) and even “Tar” (2022).
Or, as Fargeat says, a mashup of Robert Zemeckis’ “Death Becomes Her,” David Cronenberg’s “The Fly,” Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Jane Fonda’s workout videos.
The Ugly Stepsister (2025)
Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt
influenced by The Substance (2024), Revenge (2017)
Themes Visuals
…much like last year’s The Substance, examines the lengths women will go to in order to be chosen by men…
It’s The Substance by way of the Brothers Grimm.
The association between beauty and evil is hardly transgressive; The Substance only just finished its awards run. Like Fargeat’s film, The Ugly Stepsister opts to blame women for the impossible beauty standards that persevere, and make them the cruellest characters in the film.
Think “The Substance” (2024) adapts the Brothers Grimm’s “Aschenputtel,” which translates into “The Little Ash Girl,” except if “Cinderella” was told from the stepsisters’ point of view.
…much like the Oscar-nominated “The Substance,” a body-horror dramedy that with “The Ugly Stepsister” would make for an appropriate double bill.
The gory effects don’t reach the bloody excess of, say, “The Substance,”…
Similar to Demi Moore in The Substance, The Last Showgirl is another case of casting a ‘90s sex symbol that the system pushed aside acting in a project that calls it out for its ageist norms.
In its excoriation of the utter unfairness of how women in their fifties are treated by society, The Last Showgirl would seem to be a perfect double-bill partner The Substance…
In its excoriation of the unfairness of how women in their 50s are treated by society, The Last Showgirl would make a perfect double bill partner to The Substance…
Like the naturalistic flipside to this year’s The Substance, The Last Showgirl follows a woman in late middle age who is cast out of her glamour profession for the crime of aging; even more acutely than The Substance’s Demi Moore, Anderson, the wet-dream fantasy of the pneumatic ’90s, is a walking ledger of sexual currency.
It’s hard not to draw comparisons to Demi Moore’s performance in The Substance, as both films overlap in themes this year.
From The Substance to Maria to The Last Showgirl.
While some films are invoked for more specific reasons, like the body horror of Brian Yuzna's cult horror-comedy Society and Ridley Scott's sci-fi slasher Alien, others like Hitchcock's Psycho become reference points without clear purpose, as though Fargeat were attempting to simultaneously pay homage to Hollywood's male-centric, female-focused horror canon while defying and deconstructing it.
In that vein, it makes sense to lean on Showgirls and Brian de Palma's Carrie and Brian Yuzna's Society and even Cronenberg's The Fly, but the late-inning embrace of the imagery of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream feels slapdash, momentarily knocking The Substance off its axis.
But it’s hard, then, to square these images with what the director does next, as The Substance’s final stretch descends into a full-blown, blood-fountain homage to gross-out cult classics like Brian Yuzna’s 1989 horror film Society. It turns the body into a public spectacle and invites the audience in, a little too eagerly, to gawk at what has elsewhere been presented as such intimate, secret disgust.
Coming off as an unholy fusion between “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” and Death Becomes Her – with some loving nods to The Shining, John Carpenter’s The Thing and Brian Yuzna’s cult nightmare Society - The Substance is one hell of a wild ride.
Just as long as you’re not squeamish at the sight of blood, cascades of organs and the most grotesque prosthetic creations since 1989’s Society.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde initially seems to be a template, but Fargeat instead taps into hardboiled 1980s nightmare fuel, like Larry Cohen's The Stuff (1985), anything by Frank Henenlotter, and, in its final act, Brian Yuzna's Society (1989).
…like Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) without the satire of ageing and celebrity…
Sure looks like The Substance is going to be a reference point moving forward, inspired as it was (and Together is) by Cronenberg and Carpenter.
The caliber and skill of the effects design was reminiscent of the body horror in The Substance, both memorable and shocking.
Like The Substance before it, Together walks a tightrope between the comedic and grotesque.
The Substance thrived on having its last 40 minutes essentially be one large gross-out sequence to hammer out its message. No such luck with Together.
…for a film that’s been described as this year’s The Substance…
I also don’t think the filmmakers even understood what The Substance was about, because it’s all used for a lame joke; leaving so much meat on the bone in the process.
…politically incorrect fun of “Terrifier 3,” “Smile,” “M3GAN,” “Get Out,” “Longlegs,” “The Substance” and “Sinners.”
The Substance (most of which are parodied here)…
…to “The Substance,”…
…así como también utilizando algunos recursos efectivos de alguna que otra película que parodian (el momento en que recrean la transformación de «La sustancia» está bien construido desde lo narrativo y también desde lo autorreferencial)…
…with targets including Smile, M3GAN, The Substance, Terrifier, Sinners, Get Out, the recent Scream films and numerous others.
…with a body horror level to rival “The Substance.”
…the early critic comparisons to The Substance are far more apt…
…with some of the most revolting images since The Substance…
Watkins proves in “Clayface,” especially in some of the surgery sequences, that he is not afraid to go fully gnarly, à la “The Fly” (1986) or “The Substance,”…
Every other critic is going to reference “The Substance” (2024) or David Cronenberg’s early body horror work…
He meshes the recent body horror of THE SUBSTANCE (with lots of practical make-up effects and a bit of CGI)…
There is precious little restraint to The Substance. Fargeat, with cinematographer Benjamin Kracun, sexualises parts of the film in a manner so deliberately excessive it reminds one of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls.
When Sue takes over Elizabeth's show, Fargeat springs an even wilder set piece, a workout number so robotically sexual that it suggests a Jazzercise session restaged as a lap dance from Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls.
The tabloid fodder and airbrush snafus which have followed Moore make her casting reminiscent of Gloria Swanson playing Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s noir classic Sunset Boulevard (1950). But Fargeat’s shifting narrative twists and turns away from more simplistic readings to highlight how women can be their own unique victimizers as Elisabeth’s inherent self-loathing solidifies her downfall.
One of Fargeat’s best symbols, worthy of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, is the opening close-up of Sparkle’s Hollywood star as it’s installed and becomes just another bit of set dressing. A woman’s storied career is reduced to a monument that a guy accidentally sprays with fast food. When Harvey is reminded that Elizabeth won an Oscar, he bristles contemptuously, “For what? King Kong?”
Beyond that, Fargeat‘s images recall the exploding-beast-with-a-writhing-face in John Carpenter's “The Thing,” the bloodbath prom of “Carrie,” and the addiction-turned-dread of “Requiem for a Dream.”
Coming off as an unholy fusion between “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” and Death Becomes Her – with some loving nods to The Shining, John Carpenter’s The Thing and Brian Yuzna’s cult nightmare Society - The Substance is one hell of a wild ride.
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
influenced The Substance (2024)
Visuals Themes
In that vein, it makes sense to lean on Showgirls and Brian de Palma's Carrie and Brian Yuzna's Society and even Cronenberg's The Fly, but the late-inning embrace of the imagery of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream feels slapdash, momentarily knocking The Substance off its axis.
Her cruelty towards Elisabeth, her ‘matrix,’ begins to transform the woman into an old crone, which suddenly makes The Substance begin to feel like, of all things, Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000).
…an overwhelming mishmash of styles that feels like if Gaspar Noé directed an episode of Tales from the Crypt and then David Cronenberg put it into the Brundlefly machine with the ‘80s cult classic From Beyond and those Ellen Burstyn scenes from Requiem for a Dream and it was then released by Adult Swim.
While some films are invoked for more specific reasons, like the body horror of Brian Yuzna's cult horror-comedy Society and Ridley Scott's sci-fi slasher Alien, others like Hitchcock's Psycho become reference points without clear purpose, as though Fargeat were attempting to simultaneously pay homage to Hollywood's male-centric, female-focused horror canon while defying and deconstructing it.
Some have compared the film to past Cannes Palme d'Or winner Titane by Julia Ducournau, which is a far superior film, but the gulf between the two is illustrative.
Filmmakers like David Cronenberg and Julia Ducournau – the king and queen of body horror (and two of my favorite directors of all time) – have found fascinating, unique ways to implement these elements to a plethora of themes, whether it is the 80s obsession with violence on the media in Videodrome or finding unconditional love in Titane.
The last time I had a similar reaction was when I saw Titane, the provocative body horror film by Julia Ducournau (and, ironically, another French filmmaker).
This lends The Substance a greasy, trashy sheen, which eventually evens out as the film's tone becomes more exaggerated, earning comparison to Julia Ducournau's Titane (2021).
Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is a body horror film that takes after Julia Ducournau's Titane.
In “The Substance,” Fargeat also references David Cronenberg’s fondness for body horror in movies like “The Brood,” where a mad scientist experiments on a pregnant woman with dire results, Stuart Gordon’s “Re-Animator,” which also features a neon green goo that resembles The Substance, James Whale’s “The Invisible Man,” which follows a medical marvel gone awry, and Brian De Palma’s “Carrie,” in the way it uses copious amounts of blood and destruction to illustrate a girl’s pain.
In that vein, it makes sense to lean on Showgirls and Brian de Palma's Carrie and Brian Yuzna's Society and even Cronenberg's The Fly, but the late-inning embrace of the imagery of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream feels slapdash, momentarily knocking The Substance off its axis.
The ensuing consequences would make a young David Cronenberg proud. There are no carriages turning into pumpkins, but a lot of superb horror homages: “Carrie” (1976), “The Shining” (1980), “Doctor Sleep” (2019), “The Brood” (1979) and even “Tar” (2022). “The Substance” is ultimately a doppelgänger, vampiric-like, body horror film that serves as an allegory about the damaging, cannibalistic effect that the media has on people’s negative body images, which leads to self-mutilation, a distorted, damaging, demented view of beauty and misogynistic patriarchal values that only seeks male validation.
It reminded me of Michael Crichton’s neglected 80s pulp chiller Looker with Albert Finney as a sinister plastic surgeon.
…the lengths aging stars will go to retain relevance in a film that also plays as Stanley Kubrick homage (with a touch of Stuart Gordon’s "From Beyond").
Margaret Qualley, similar to her bit part in Poor Things (2023), is fashioned as an ideal feminine body (her rampant abuse of the system also recalls one of her mother Andie MacDowell’s romantic comedies, Multiplicity, 1996).
I was reminded of Patrick Bateman’s self-indulgent ramblings around his favored beauty routines in American Psycho.