Parents' Guide to The Substance

A brilliantly savage satire on the male gaze and women's self-image, this body-horror movie goes all the way up to the edge and past it. Even the most jaded viewers may want to cover their eyes in some scenes. Written and directed by filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, whose 2017 debut movie, Revenge, was an amazing, unrelenting feminist thriller, The Substance is a bigger, bolder follow-up—although, like its predecessor, it rages. Viewers should know just how far this movie goes into its squelching, infected, spewing, wince-inducing body horror.

And while there's no denying that it's over-the-top, it's also deeply effective, serving as an intelligent, direct exposure of the double standard that's often applied to men's and women's bodies. Quaid plays a man of some power who's icky in every way, shelling and slurping shrimp at lunch, smiling with disgusting teeth, and ogling and pawing at beautiful young women. Moore's character, on the other hand, who's spent her life staying in shape and looking her best, is the one who pays the price (Moore is fantastic in the role). In one deeply ironic—but key—sequence, during a taping of Sue's erotic exercise routines, the director orders a cut (he saw something "weird"), after which all the male crew members move forward to scrutinize the monitor—and every millimeter of Sue's close-up, semi-naked flesh—frame by frame. It's too bad the movie doesn't further explore the rules of this peculiar split-person situation (why aren't the women more connected intellectually and emotionally?). But, as bodies divide and merge and turn into indescribable monsters, The Substance asks the question: Why are women subject to such scrutiny and not men? That question isn't addressed here with the mind, but rather with the gooey stuff that makes us up—the stuff that makes us human but eventually, after a time, returns to goop.