THE SUBSTANCE (2024) ****

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a new sheriff in town.  Her name is Coralie Fargeat.  You might remember she made that solid revenge flick a few years ago, aptly titled Revenge.  I dug that movie sure enough, but nothing could’ve prepared me for her latest film, The Substance.  It is a modern classic that is destined to be critiqued, analyzed, and examined for years to come.  It is quite simply the ultimate horror film of the 21st century. 

The story is an old hat.  Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an aging celebrity fitness personality desperate to be young again.  She hears about a new wonder drug called “The Substance” and tries it.  Very quickly she learns about the side effects.

That set-up will no doubt seem familiar to anyone who’s seen The Wasp Woman or The Leech Woman.  Fargeat also borrows from a rather surprising array of sources, both highbrow and low.  What makes it work so gloriously well is that she wears her inspirations on her sleeve with pride.  There are moments here that look like Kubrick on ecstasy.  Others resemble Lynch on steroids.  The most accurate comparison I can make though is this:  Imagine if David Cronenberg directed the Barbie movie and that will give you an idea of what we have here. 

I don’t want to spoil the best parts of the movie, so I’ll keep the review as brief and vague as I can.  However, I will say that Fargeat crams a lot of messaging into the movie and says it all in bold and italics.  The reason it works is because she starts the film at 10 and continues to crank it up as the story progresses.  I mean, having a lecherous Hollywood type named “Harvey” is probably one of the most subtle aspects of the film. 

Sometimes, you need to beat the message into the audience.  When you see Elisabeth continuing to use The Substance, even though she knows it will destroy her, you can drop in miracle diets, weight loss cures, plastic surgery, etc. as the metaphor, and it works.  Look at the people who can’t stop having plastic surgeries but are so far gone they can’t seem to stop.  Look at the people jabbing themselves to stay thin.  Her deadly desire for The Substance doesn’t seem farfetched. 

The opening sequence is one of the best scenes you’ll see in this millennium, and perfectly sets the tone.  Once the movie goes into full-on body horror mode, it doesn’t look back.  The finale contains one of the most amazingly sustained scenes of concentrated cinematic insanity I’ve ever seen.  During this scene, I thought of Society, Basket Case, Carrie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Elephant Man, and Leviathan.  During this scene, you may find yourself disgusted.  You may laugh.  You may recoil in horror.  All are acceptable responses. 

The performances are stellar. Moore is a revelation.  She has never been better.  She brings so much pain to the role.  It’s a brave performance.  One of the all-time greats.  Margaret Qualley naturally is her match as Sue, the entitled, sexy, younger version of Elisabeth.  She radiates sexuality but keeps her unfathomable rage bubbling just under the surface.  (Oh, and speaking as a connoisseur of celebrity workout videos, I would totally buy the full season's worth of her “Pump it Up” exercise program.)  Then there’s Dennis Quaid as Harvey.  He’s a force of nature.  He almost resembles a Looney Tunes version of Vince McMahon. 

This is the kind of movie I love.  It’s equal parts arthouse and grindhouse.  Even though it’s drawing inspiration from several sources, it still feels totally fresh.  It also contains the best use of a chicken leg since Killer Joe.  It’s already won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and yet, something tells me it could win a Fangoria Chainsaw Award just as easily. It’s that kind of picture.  The best one of the year.  Possibly, ever.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981) ***

FORMAT:  4K UHD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

This is one of Lucio Fulci’s most atmospheric films. It doesn’t have his trademark balls-out gory set pieces and moves at a deliberate pace, but stay with it, because it has an electrifying final reel.

A family moves into the titular house that was once owned by the wonderfully named Dr. Freudstein. Little do they know that Freudstein is a maggot faced zombie who is dwelling in their basement and needs to kill people to stay alive. The ghost of Freudstein’s daughter befriends the little towheaded Bob (A Blade in the Dark’s Giovanni Frezza) and tries to warn him that her daddy is a nutjob. Bob tries to tell his parents about Freudstein, but since Bob is whiny and badly dubbed, nobody listens.

There’s a knife through the mouth, a bat attack, a sword in the neck, a decapitation, and some throat ripping for the gorehounds; and some brief nudity for the pervs. Co-starring Catriona (The Gates of Hell) MacColl and Dagmar (Werewolf Woman) Lassander.

Memo to prospective homeowners: If the house you are looking at has the tombstone of its former tenant in the middle of the hallway, DON’T BUY THE FUCKING HOUSE!

QUICK THOUGHTS:

The House by the Cemetery remains a solid second tier Lucio Fulci flick.  Like The Gates of Hell, it suffers from some lulls in between the good stuff, but when Fulci cooks, he whips up a smorgasbord.  But the thing that makes the film so memorable is BOB!  Try to keep track of how many times someone says “Bob”.  Warning:  Don’t make a drinking game of it.  I can’t have your death from alcohol poisoning on my conscience. 

4K UHD NOTES:

It’s important to mention that Blue Underground’s edition is mastered in Dolby Vision.  My 4K player and TV can only support HDR+, and it still looked phenomenal to me.  The blacks (especially in the basement scenes) are spectacular, and the picture looks sharp throughout.  It looks particularly great whenever the camera is in motion, as it often feels like you’re in the thick of the action.  Oh, and you get BOB in 4K!   What more can you ask for?

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: TORTURED FEMALES (1965) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Tortured Females begins with a long title scene that goes on and on about the white slave racket and how more girls should heed the lesson of Little Red Riding Hood!  We then follow the story of Helen (Denine Dubois), a young woman who narrowly escaped the clutches of white slavery, who recounts her story to a sheriff.  Seems she went to visit her aunt in the country when she ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere.  She was then picked up by a creep who raped her and took her back to “the ranch house” where white slavers were about to turn over a shipment of girls to “Mr. Big”.  As you probably already guessed, they try to add poor Helen to the inventory. 

You know you’re in for something special from the moment you see the great hand drawn title card.  Like The Beast of Yucca Flats, it’s all narration and no synch sound.  What dialogue we do get is poorly dubbed.  I love bargain bin shit like this.

Not that you need things like “titles”, “sound”, or “a budget” when most of the movie consists of long scenes of women getting undressed, showering, and getting dressed again.  There’s also some skinny-dipping in a creek, nude girls chained to the wall, random stripteases, and women being whipped.  That’s not to mention the odd scene where Dubois (who is quite good, all things considered, as she has the uncanny ability to get naked at the drop of a hat) dances with an oversized stuffed animal.  (She even kisses it goodbye!)

The best part though is the hunchback who acts as the girls’ “keeper”.  Not only does he look like something out of a Frankenstein movie; his voice was dubbed by a monkey!  Folks, I’ve seen some weird shit in my time, and this is the kind of weird shit I like to see. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: MR. MARI’S GIRLS (1967) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Mr. Mari is a suave bastard who sits in his swanky New York apartment and preys upon girls in trouble.  Have a gambling debt?  Mr. Mari will erase it.  Are you a junkie in need of a fix?  Mr. Mari has the horse you need.  Need some quick dough for a back-alley abortion?  Call on Mr. Mari!  Do you need a priest so you can marry your lesbian lover?  Mr. Mari’s your man!

This paste-up low budget sexploitation flick is comprised of a series of loosely related vignettes.  Even though the segments are wildly different, things often feel repetitive due to the structure.  It features lots of echo-y narration, dream scenes, and flashbacks inside of flashbacks.  None of this really ever comes together to make a cohesive whole (the segment about a girl trying to escape the clutches of some low rent hoods feels like it came out of an entirely different movie), but fortunately, since the running time is only an hour long, it zips by at a reasonable rate. 

There's a decent amount of skin here too, which I guess is all that really matters.  There’s sex, nude photo shoots, showers, junkie chicks stripping, gratuitous disrobing scenes, nude painting, and naked telephone conversations.  Best of all is the clothes-ripping battle royale cat fight amongst all the girls Mr. Mari has “helped” that serves as our climax.  Overall, there’s just about enough naughty bits to keep you interested, but not quite enough to make it a winner. 

There was no cast listing for this one, but I did recognize Doris Wishman regular Sam Stewart as a sketchy bookie.  Sadly, I’m not sure who the actress was that played the pregnant teen.  All I know is that she had one of the biggest butts I’ve ever seen in a ‘60s sexploitation movie.  So, if you’re a tush man, feel free to add an extra Half-Star to the rating. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: TWO GIRLS FOR A MADMAN (1968) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

Toni (Arlene Farber from Teenage Mother) and Sonya (Jean Weston) are friends who dance together in a ballet company in New York.  Toni catches the eye of Frank (Lucky Kargo), a cackling psycho sex fiend at a swingers’ party.  He then follows her and her date to their car where he rapes her at gunpoint.  Eventually, Frank begins stalking both girls and before long, he attacks Sonya while she’s practicing her ballet. 

Two Girls for a Madman is a surprisingly effective roughie that is hallmarked by some cool music and professional looking camerawork.  It looks like one of those rare instances where the director (in this case, Stanely H. Brassloff) and everyone else involved set out to make a “real” movie under the guise of a sex flick.  Sure, you get your share of skin, but there’s some (not much granted) interesting stuff going on here.  The ending feels like something you’d see out of Antonioni.  While there is a decent story being told and a considerable amount of craftsmanship on display, there are still plenty of pauses during the drama that are tailor made for some gratuitous T & A (like the locker room scenes at the ballet school). 

The characters and performances are also much better than you might expect.  The leading ladies’ roles are a lot more fleshed out than was the norm for a ‘60s roughie.  Farber is quite good as the sexed up-ballerina (more movies should contain those) and Weston (who only appeared in two films) fares well as the more conservative of the pair.  Kargo is also memorable as the wild-eyed psychopath and is appropriately menacing during the lengthy car ride sequence.  The dialogue is often priceless too.  My favorite line came courtesy of the girls’ strict ballet instructor who says Toni is a “technically hideous” dancer. 

Brassloff later went on to direct Toys are Not for Children.

THE DEADLY ORGAN (1967) ***

The first thing you should know right off the bat is that the organ the title refers to is that of the musical instrument variety.  So, if you thought this was going to be about a giant killer schlong or something, you can forget about it. 

A guy in a creepy mask controls women by doping them up with heroin then using eerie music to make them do his bidding.  When people start turning up dead with giant hypodermic needles plunged into their chests, a suave detective is called in to investigate.  The killer then narrows down the suspect list when he starts bumping off the people the detective has questioned. 

It’s not every day you get to see an Argentinian sexploitation horror flick, and as far as these things go, The Deadly Organ is a good one.  The killer’s mask looks cool, and the music is great too as it features lots of go-go and surf rock stuff.  The film is very atmospheric as well as some scenes resemble film noir, others look like something out of a Universal horror movie (especially Phantom of the Opera), while whole stretches are seemingly inspired by German expressionism.  There’s also a surprising amount of skin, even if most of it comes in the form of fleeting glimpses.  (The sexy striptease scene is particularly steamy.)

The downside to all this is the second act definitely lacks the punch of the first.  Once the detective shows up, the whole movie downshifts.  There are also way too many side characters that act as red herrings.  At least they eventually get killed off, which adds to the overall body count.  Luckily, once the killer reappears in the last twenty minutes, the film starts cooking again.  Sure, it’s not perfect, but whenever the killer is front and center and stabbing people with hypodermic needles, The Deadly Organ is perfectly in tune. 

AKA:  Feast of Flesh.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: A NIGHT IN HOLLYWOOD (1953) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

One of the premiere striptease artists of the era, Tempest Storm (who has two great nicknames:  “The 4D Girl” and “The Girl with the Fabulous Front") toplines this otherwise lukewarm Burlesque film. 

The first act is an unfunny comedy calypso song.  Sexy blonde Mae (The A-B-C’s of Love) Blondell does a saucy little striptease before a comedy duo shows us the art of picking up women.  Blonde bombshell Misty Ayers really knows how to shake her caboose during her striptease.  The next sketch involves a newlywed couple getting advice on their wedding night.  Brunette Rhea Walker takes the stage afterwards and does an okay, but unmemorable strip routine.  Then it’s a sketch about a drunk lecturing a guy on the street about the evils of whisky.  Afterwards, “The Texas Sweetheart” does a striptease, a comedienne performs a comic rhumba number, and a sketch about a trio of drunks coming home to their respective wives.  Things switch over from black and white to color in the final reel as the headliner Tempest Storm takes center stage.  And boy, let me tell you!  It was certainly worth the wait! 

Storm’s number gives the film a definite boost.  She has all her assets on display and shows why she was among the best in the world.  The addition of color for her routine is a nice touch too. 

While this isn’t one of the best Burlesque movies I’ve watched this week, I am glad that someone had the foresight to grab a camera to capture the art form just as it was dying out (especially Storm’s number in full color).  Sure, I realize the filmmakers were just trying to make a buck and weren’t exactly cultural historians.  At least these acts have been preserved for the next generation of appreciators of old-timey smut like me. 

Jean Carroll, who plays one of the comediennes, was also in Ron Ormond’s Burlesque movie, Varieties on Parade.