The Substance: New Horror Movie Starring Demi Moore Gets Freaky Teaser

French director Coralie Fargeat’s breakout horror film with American audiences was 2017’s Revenge, and now she’s back with her first feature since that release with The Substance. Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid, the film already premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where it scored Best Screenplay, and now the first teaser for the madness and mayhem has been unleashed. Much like Revenge, the film looks to be as gruesome as it is stylish, with this teaser also spotlighting some of the movie’s more bombastic reviews. Check out the teaser trailer for The Substance below before it hits theaters on September 20th.

The Cannes Film Festival described the movie, “Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? You should try this new product: The Substance. It changed my life. With The Substance, you can generate another version of yourself, younger, more beautiful, more perfect… Just share the time. One week for one, one week for the other. A perfect balance of seven days. Easy isn’t it?If you follow the instructions, what could go wrong?”

In addition to being a body horror movie, this synopsis also teases that it could borrow elements of body-swapping, making for an altogether ambitious outing for the genre. 

With 44 reviews, The Substance currently sits at 93% positive on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

Over at The Daily Beast, Esther Zuckerman wrote of The Substance, “When I say The Substance, the Demi Moore-starring movie that rocked Cannes, is bloody that’s an understatement. Take the amount of blood you think could be in this movie and double it. No, triple it. At one point during the run time you will think you have seen the bloodiest part, but just you wait. It gets bloodier. And yet the blood isn’t even the part of this wonderfully batsh-t body horror spectacular that had me almost throwing up. It’s a symphony of lurching flesh that might have you both gagging and cheering. The audience at my press screening of Cannes certainly did. We whooped, we gasped, and we clapped. It’s the grossest thing you will see all year.”

Meanwhile, David Ehrlich at IndieWire explained, “The Substance is a non-stop, go-until-you-gag epic that builds and builds and builds until it scars everyone in the audience with a deep-seated physiological aversion to the idea that we can ever hope to escape from ourselves. Fargaet’s movie escalates with the kind of ultra-confident audacity that leaves you laughing out loud at sights that would otherwise make you shriek instead, and it simply refuses to end until even Harvey himself is sickened by how society pressures women into shaping their bodies.”

The Substance hits theaters on September 20th.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!