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Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley‘s new horror film The Substance premiered at Cannes Film Festival this weekend, garnering glowing – and equally horrified – reviews ahead of its global premiere.
From director Coralie Fargeat (Revenge), The Substance is a gory, body horror feature about a movie star (Moore) who begins taking injecting herself with The Substance, which promises to create “a new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect you,” according to the film’s official synopsis. The only caveat is that she and this “more perfect” version of herself (played by Qualley) must switch places every seven days, creating a rivalry unlike anything we’ve seen before.
According to Deadline, the feature received a 13-minute standing ovation after its premiere Sunday evening, which the outlet notes is the longest so far of this year’s festival.
“This is my first time to have a film premiere in Cannes. I’m so happy to be here. I’m a little exhausted — that was intense,” Moore reportedly said after the applause, per Variety.
Dispatches from the Cannes screening compared The Substance to everything from Freaky Friday to The Picture of Dorian Gray to Titane, but many reviews agreed that it was “absolutely f***ing insane.”
“Demi Moore going full demented. Loved,” IndieWire chief film critic David Ehrlich wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“THE SUBSTANCE absolutely rules!! Perhaps one of the greatest body horror of all time?” critic Karl Delossantos wrote. “Give Demi Moore an Oscar nom. Bloody, audacious, hilarious. A blast!”
Vogue‘s Radhika Seth also praised Moore’s performance in the film, noting that it’s “without doubt, the performance of her career.” Seth also writes that the film’s “gonzo, breathless descent into the abyss… may seem far-fetched,” but remains “oddly prescient” in today’s day and age of Ozempic injections and cosmetic procedures.
Many reviews specifically pointed to the film’s “bats**t” third act, where Moore and Qualley’s face-off appears to reach a total breaking point, underscored by the film’s use of “grotesque prosthetics.”
“Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are both superb in this excessively gory spectacle of body horror. This one is for the sickos,” critic josh Parham wrote.
But Fargeat told Variety that the film’s use of body horror is “the perfect vehicle to express the violence all these women’s issues are about,” which rings especially true as the film premieres amid France’s own #MeToo movement.
The Substance has been acquired by Mubi. A global release date has not been announced yet.
