13 Movies To Watch If You Loved ‘The Substance’ (2024)
The Substance was the most exciting horror movie of 2024. Written, directed and co-produced by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, The Substance is about an aging star’s desperation to be seen as beautiful told through the vehicle of bloody, stomach-turning body horror.
For fans who love The Substance and are looking for similar films to watch, these 10 movies might scratch that itch:
- Revenge (2017). Coralie Fargeat’s feature debut is a bloody Mad Max inspired action horror movie about a young woman (Matilda Lutz) who is chased across a desert landscape by her boyfriend and his two dirtbag friends after a sexual assault severs civility among the group. Revenge is to the rape/revenge subgenre what The Substance is to body horror. They are both feminist films that feel like dark fairy tales. They also both contain finales which are very brutal and very fun.
- Reality+ (2014). This 22-minute short film was written and directed by Fargeat and is available on YouTube. It is set in a near future where biotechnology has advanced to allow people with an implanted chip to see themselves and others as physically perfect human beings for 12 hours a day. You can see how the ideas in The Substance evolved for Fargeat over the last 10 years.
- Society (1989). This is a body horror movie about the pressures of conforming to societal ideals and it may be the one horror movie as obsessed with butts as The Substance.
- Infinity Pool (2023). Brandon Cronenberg wrote and directed this horror movie about a vacationing man (Alexander Skarsgård) who learns a loophole to local law when he accidentally kills a man while drunk driving. He is able to pay a large sum of money to be cloned and have his clone put to death in his place.
- The Shining (1980). Several aesthetic choices in The Substance seem to be inspired by Stanley Kubrick, like the red hallway with patterned carpet, the use of the 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) theme music and the nonsensical floorplan of Elisabeth’s apartment. The double forms of the woman in room 237 from The Shining also come to mind as they represent the same woman in her young and elderly bodies.
- Death Becomes Her (1992). Two women desperate to be young and beautiful ingest a black market serum with unintended side effects. Sound familiar? The ground-breaking computer-generated effects might be considered body horror if the tone of the film weren’t overtly comedic.
- Scream 3 (2000). While the tone of this slasher movie is much more comedic than The Substance, it is about the dark side of Hollywood. The diabolical actions of men like Dennis Quaid’s character in The Substance is the backdrop against which the story is set.
- Carrie (1976). The bloody penultimate scene in The Substance will remind horror fans of the iconic prom bloodbath.
- Videodrome (1983). The scene of Sue reaching inside her own body to remove a chicken leg will remind viewers of Videodrome. The movie follows a television station employee (James Woods) who searches for the source of a bizarre broadcast.
- Dead Ringers (1988). Twin gynecologists (both played by Jeremy Irons) are so close that it seems like they share one life, even switching identities to sleep with women and perform surgeries. Like in The Substance it seems their survival is tied to each other — what one does deeply affects the other.
- Us (2019). A vacationing family is attacked and pursued by their doppelgängers, known as the “Tethered”. The doppelgängers wish to murder their counterparts and commandeer their lives.
- Requiem for a Dream (2000). The physical costs of “substances” are on full, gruesome display in this Darren Aronofsky drama.
- X (2022). The fear of aging and loss of beauty is a major source of anxiety for the murderous septuagenarian Pearl in Ti West’s X trilogy. Mia Goth portrays both the young Maxine Minx and the elderly Pearl.
