The Substance (2024)

The Substance rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic

IMDb7.2/10· 417K votes

Rotten Tomatoes89%

Metacritic78%

TMDb7.134/10· 6K votes

With 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 7.2/10 on IMDb and 78/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been very positive.

About The Substance

A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

Cast of The Substance

• 

  Demi Moore

  as Elisabeth

• 

  Margaret Qualley

  as Sue

• 

  Dennis Quaid

  as Harvey

• 

  Edward Hamilton-Clark

  as Fred

• 

  Gore Abrams

  as Oliver

• 

  Oscar Lesage

  as Troy

• 

  Christian Erickson

  as Man at Diner

• 

  Robin Greer

  as Male Nurse

• 

  Tom Morton

  as Doctor

• 

  Hugo Diego Garcia

  as Diego - Boyfriend

• 

  Daniel Knight

  as Casting Director

• 

  Jonathon Carley

  as Assistant Casting Director

The Substance facts

Budget

$17.5M

Box office

$77.3M

Our take on The Substance

Coralie Fargeat's 2024 body-horror satire follows a fading celebrity who turns to a black-market drug that spawns a younger, better version of herself, cell by cell. Working the seam where science fiction meets grisly physical horror, it interrogates the machinery of fame and the cruelty women absorb around aging. Fargeat favors visceral imagery and mounting dread over reassurance, so this suits viewers who like their genre cinema provocative, stylized and unafraid to disturb. The premise stays lean and allegorical, letting the horror escalate from an unsettling idea into something far more grotesque. If you want polite scares, look elsewhere; this rewards a strong stomach and appetite for confrontation.