How rare is The Substance star Demi Moore’s win for a horror role at the Golden Globes? You may find the answer—especially for female actors—well, shocking.
Moore won her Golden Globe Sunday night for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for the body horror film, which makes her feat even more remarkable.
However, since The Substance is part satire, its dark humour helped qualify Moore and writer-director Coralie Fargeat for a combined four nominations for the film in the Globes’ Musical or Comedy category.
For Moore’s character, Elizabeth Sparkle, her story in The Substance is not a laughing matter. Once an A-list star in Hollywood, Elizabeth luckily found success after her heyday by becoming a TV aerobics guru.
That success, however, is brutally taken away the day Elizabeth turns 50-years-old, as her crass, sexist boss (Dennis Quaid) fires her from the show with the goal of replacing her with a younger host.
Desperate to hang on to her youth, Elizabeth begins to inject herself with a black-market drug known simply as The Substance, which replicates her cells and in a ghastly physcial transition, gives the former Hollywood luminary a younger, ‘better version’ of herself.
Renaming her younger self (Margaret Qualley) Sue, Elizabeth quickly learns that there are horrific consequences if she does not use ‘The Substance’ properly.
Despite the film’s wicked sense of humour, The Substance is billed as a ‘body horror’ film that features scenes with blood and gore as Elizabeth’s neglectful use of the drug has monstrous implications—with an emphasis on the word ‘monster’. -Forbes
