ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

Ahhh, to be young again…when going to see a horror movie that you waited months for meant something.

The Substance is a rare moment in recent years where a movie exceeds expectations. The film’s marketing tricks audiences into thinking they’re seeing an elevated horror film and then punches them in the balls like horror movies did in the old days.

Elisabeth Sparkle, star of a popular morning exercise show, ages out of her job. Out of desperation, she turns to a black-market beauty treatment called “the substance,” which splits Sparkle into herself as she is now, and a younger, more “fantastic” version of herself, named Sue.

Of course, the treatment requires a very specific regiment that must be followed and “the balance must be respected.” Sparkle’s consciousness must hop bodies ever seven days without exception. The husk on the floor is set up with an IV drip to keep them going in the interim. Kind of like a corporeal timeshare. It’s not long before the single consciousness splits into two and form a rivalry that ultimately leads to self- abuse.

Demi Moore shines as brightly as she ever did here, carrying much of the film alone in a room by herself. Kudos to the casting director for casting the three love interests to reflect Moore’s own personal life. The nerdy guy she went to grade-school with named Fred (her first husband was a nerd named Freddie Moore), Sue’s hot hookup (an Ashton Kutcher look alike) and a guy who resembles Bruce Willis circa 1996.

Demi deserves an award just for all the practical makeup effects she endured let alone all the closeups of her body. Let’s talk about the close-ups. This film is filled with them. Right now, some freshman film student is licking their lips while writing about the film’s excessive use of the “male gaze.” But it isn’t. The Substance was directed by a woman. So whose gaze is it that lingers lustfully over Sue’s nubile young body in her pink leotard? Why, it’s everyone’s, of course. Every audience member takes away from film what they bring in with them. Women watching this film could just as easily look at the close-ups of Sue and wish they had those thighs.

Internalized misogyny aside, humans are inevitably a visual species. We automatically like attractive people, regardless of whether they’re good people or not. See Ted Bundy, Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise for reference.

I have vivid memories of the first time I ever envied Demi Moore’s hair. It was 1982 when I was ten years old, and I saw her played Jackie Templeton on General Hospital. I’ve loved her fashion sense and her acting ever since, although I never reached her level of awesome hair. Imitation in adolescent and pre-adolescent girls offers them an outlet to explore their own individuality that breaks off as we grow into young adults. In a sense, the substance allows Elisabeth to re-experience this phenomenon in the form of Sue.

Kids are being kids, Sue eventually decides she doesn’t want to go back every seven days as prescribed, and things go awry quickly. But it’s the older version who suffers. Because everything we do to our bodies in youth, we ultimately pay for later in life. Just ask my shin splints.

Along with penning a very smart screenplay, director Coralie Fargeat, herself 48, has clearly done her horror movie homework and absorbed the lessons of Basket Case, The Fly, The Elephant Man, Frankenhooker, Tetsuo and Carrie well. The film never feels preachy or pretentious. It manages to avoid feeling like a tired rip-off, despite using some sets, camera angles, and editing choices that audiences have seen before.

In fact, the art house crowd might feel like they’ve coaxed into a bait-and-switch during the last act, when the film spews more blood than the end of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive and features a full-blown Elisabeth/Sue Monstro parading down Hollywood boulevard in a frilly blue ballgown. A wonderfully satirical ending that will leave the old-school horror fans cheering for the “monster.”  The level of the makeup effects The Substance brings to the table is outstanding. If you don’t like needles, it’s probably best to steer clear. For the rest, it’s a cringey, goopy and slimy good time.