Metacritic reviews

It’s the casting of Moore, though, and her willingness to denude herself at 61 – emotionally, as well as physically – that gives The Substance a startling connection with its themes. Not for 30 years has she owned a film with anything like this certitude. Watching her confront the Demi Moore in the mirror, and do it so mercilessly, is extraordinary.

The tone is incredibly specific – darkly funny, exuberant, sad and enraged – and the small cast nails it.

An immensely, unstoppably, ecstatically demented fairy tale about female self-hatred, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance will stop at nothing — and I mean nothing — to explode the ruthless beauty standards that society has inflicted upon women for thousands of years.

A bold dissection on aging and self-hatred Fargeat’s latest work is an utter visual marvel and features superb performances from its lead actresses; Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.

In its trashiness – and, yes, its refusal of serious substance – The Substance should really be put out on VHS cassettes and watched at home in homage to the great era of home entertainment pulp and video-store masterpieces of weirdness and crassness.

The Substance is the work of a filmmaker with a vision. She’s got something primal to say to us.

This potent body horror is executed with skill and compassion, bringing fresh insights alongside generous helpings of graphic gore.

For some viewers, this frenzied finale will be reason enough to treasure The Substance; for others, it will be reason enough to steer well clear. But no one who sees Fargeat's film will forget it. If she had taken it to its magnificently tasteless extreme 15 or 20 minutes sooner, it would have been a cult classic.

This is an assured, blackly funny, and outrageous horror that will leave you roaring with approval.

The most compelling parts of The Substance deal with how social conventions turn women against themselves. A stronger version of the film might have dug into the complexities of that truth, instead of simply arranging itself around it.