Use of Tropes: The Substance

With numerous Oscar nominations I thought it about time I watched Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 movie The Substance. I went in expecting body horror, I also recognised many influences on the narrative as I watched but I don’t think I was expecting to strongly feel a vampire trope. Now, before we go on, I have to say that whilst I think there is something we might describe as auto-vampirism, I do not think there was any intention to touch into a vampiric element (unless that was the vampirism of the movie and TV industries themselves). However it was such a strong recognition within me that I felt compelled to feature The Substance here.

Elisabeth in the corridor

The film starts with an egg, the yolk is injected and it splits into two – it essentially communicates the main plot and then, to give us the background we need on main character Elisabeth Sparkles (Demi Moore), we see her Walk of Fame star being laid and then see it weather and crack over time. In the present of the film, she is hosting a daytime TV fitness show. The studio has a long corridor with carpet that was not the same as the famous carpet in the Overlook Hotel but I couldn’t help but think had been chosen to bring it to mind. Elisabeth, after filming, needs a restroom but the ladies is out of order and so she goes in the gents. Whilst in a cubicle she hears station executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid) discussing getting a younger replacement for her as he makes his misogynistic ageist views about her apparent. When she later meets him for lunch he is drawn as the greed of the industry personified.

the sale's pitch

Elisabeth ends up in a car crash but, luckily, is uninjured, but the various events have had an emotional toll. Before she leaves the young male nurse (Robin Greer) feels her spine and declares her an ideal candidate. When she has left the hospital, she finds she has been slipped a memory stick labelled with The Substance and a note saying how it changed the writer’s life. I’m not going blow-by-blow as it is the vampiric trope I want to get to. Suffice it to say that she listens to the cryptic message on the stick, ignores it but eventually, driven by the casting advert aiming to replace her, contacts the people behind the Substance. What I found interesting was in no place is finance mentioned, nor are full instructions given (and yet Elisabeth seems to know what to do). Having got her starter package from a back alley building she injects the substance.

eye division

It works pretty quickly and we see her in pain and her pupil divide and become two as her body is twisted, things move below the skin, two eyes sit in a socket and her back splits from which emerges a younger woman – who later names herself Sue (Margaret Qualley). The rules of the Substance are as follows: “You are the matrix. Everything comes from you. Everything is you. This is simply a better version of yourself. You just have to share. One week for one and one week for the other. A perfect balance of seven days each. The one and only thing not to forget: You. Are. One. You can't escape from yourself.” The injection can only be used once and should then be discarded. The other self has to inject stabiliser every day (which is harvested spinal fluid from the original). Whilst one is active for seven days, the other is fed intravenously (food refills are provided by the invisible ones behind this). However, the balance has to be maintained.

the hag's finger

Sue gets Elisabeth’s fitness show slot and is a hit. Elisabeth seems lost within her weeks and Sue wants more than she has (they forget they are one and the same). Sue overruns, due to carnal desire, actively taking an extra dose of spinal fluid. When Elisabeth is switched with her after this (the switch being achieved through tubes that seem to exchange their blood between them) a finger has become old, gnarled and greyed – almost crone or hag like. Literally, if Sue takes time from her, remains her young self-longer, then it greatly ages (parts of) Elisabeth and this was the trope I spotted. Although they are split into two, they are meant to be one and so it is very reminiscent of vampire films such as I Vampiri and Countess Dracula - though she is not getting her youth from the death of others. Indeed, the accelerated aging affecting her normal self as a price for the periods of youth is very much like Countess Dracula. Elisabeth discovers she can stop this and there is a termination solution for the other self but also discovers “What has been used on one side, is lost on the other side. There's no going back.”

Margaret Qualley as Sue

There are obvious things the film draws on. The elements of The Picture of Dorian Gray and perhaps even Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the science, though it is youth and fame that is explored as well as the misogynist heart of the fame machine that sees female value in sexualised youth, are very apparent. I had noticed a while back that Kim Newman had made a connection to The Wasp Woman, which does share some broad themes with this and which was one I examined as a potential vampire film (concluding it depended on how broad your definition of the genre is). I loved the look of this film; it wore superficialness as a badge of honour and applied a stylistic gloss, which worked so well given the themes it explores. I had been told some time before that the third act turns heavily into body horror so that was no surprise but there is a blood filled sequence that gives Japanese Splatter-punk a run for its money. Is it a vampire film – in truth no, whilst it plays with the youth stealing trope, she steals from herself (rather than vampirically stealing from others) after all, They. Are. One.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ On Mubi via Amazon US

On Demand @ On Mubi via Amazon UK

Necronomicon: Book of Dead – review

Director: Shûsuke Kaneko (second segment)

Release date: 1993

Contains spoilers


I was contacted by Leila to ask what I thought of the film Necronomicon – or more specifically if I thought the portmanteau film’s second segment was Vamp. Clearly, as I’m reviewing it, the answer is “yes” – though at the point of asking I hadn’t seen the film. Luckily someone had uploaded it to YouTube.

Jeffrey Combs as Lovecraft

Of course, the fact that I was asked means that it is on the unusual end of Vamp. Given the title I’m sure you can guess that this was a Lovecraft based film. The wraparound features H P Lovecraft (Jeffrey Combs, Dark House) in an arcane library trying, and succeeding, in getting his hands on the Necronomicon. The book features in all three sections. Tale one is a tale of supposed resurrection and monstrous tentacled eldritchness. Tale three is a trip through hell and madness.

a journalist calls

The one we are bothered about is based on the short story by Lovecraft called Cool Air and, whilst the vampiric aspect never appeared in the original story, it is recognisably that short expanded. It begins with a reporter, Dale Porkel (Dennis Christopher, Angel), turning up at a house to question tenant Annie Osterman (Bess Meyer) about bodies found in the vicinity, strange deaths that have occurred over the years. All in all there have been 11 bodies he knows of. She invites him in and has her mother make some tea.

David Warner as Madden

The house is freezing and she wears shades. She explains that she has a rare disease that makes her susceptible to sunlight and heat. He asks about Dr Richard Madden (David Warner) , who is down on the house deeds as the owner – some eighty years previously and there is no record of his death. He pressures Annie into telling her mother’s tale or he will print and be damned.

Bess Meyer as Emily

Her mother Emily (also played by Bess Meyer) ran away to study and came to the house as there was a room to rent. She was given a room by Lena (Millie Perkins) who tells her not to disturb Dr Madden on the top floor. Emily showers and, when back in her room, notices some substance dripping from the ceiling onto her music stand. She is suddenly grabbed by Sam (Gary Graham, Universal Dead) – her abusive step-father who has tracked her down. She manages to get away but is caught on the stairs heading up and bashes her head. She is saved by Madden who asks her not to be a stranger.

mad scientist

The next night she is woken by a bloody liquid dripping on her. She goes upstairs to see Lena and Madden operating on Sam’s still living body, drilling holes in his spine. She passes out and wakes in her bed, the liquid has gone from the ceiling and she is all too willing to believe it a dream. The dream shatters, however, when she tries to get a job in the diner over the road. The owner (Curt Lowens) mentions that Madden must be over 100 and two cop patrons have photos of Sam, which they are showing around. She confronts Madden.

revitalising a rose

He has told her that he suffers from a condition but now suggests that the key is the Necronomicon (which he has in his possession), holding within its pages the means to preserving life. He clearly used that key and shows her how he can revitalise a rose with an injection (presumably of a serum). He then explains that the rose will remain intact if kept out of sunlight and further explains that, to ensure he survives, he needs spinal fluid taken from his victims. Emily isn’t too bothered, apparently, as she sleeps with him and watches him go to sleep in a refrigerating unit – however when a jealous Lena tells her that she will kill her, or Emily must kill Lena, she runs away.

melting

She returns when she realises she is pregnant to find Lena and Madden attacking the diner owner. She tries to save him and causes a fire in the process. The heat damages Madden so badly that he starts to melt (in a visceral disintegration scene). Lena shoots Emily… The story ended it is clear that the reporter has seen through things; he realises that, although twenty years have passed, Annie is in fact Emily and must have caught the condition from Madden when they slept together (and then realises he’s been drugged). Emily admits it, saying that the shooting killed her but she stayed alive and is still pregnant. Lena, now aged, poses as "Annie's mother".

the Necronomicon

So we have immortality and youth bestowed by something – was it a scientifically created serum or a spell from the Necronomicon, the film is vague and also suggests that it is a disease passed as an STD. That state of being is then maintained by staying cold, avoiding sunlight and through spinal fluid. The spinal fluid concept is not dissimilar to the Leech Woman and Brand upon the Brain! where the vampirism involves fluids from the brain. Having died from the gunshot, Emily is apparently undead and heat/sunlight causes dissolution.

The entire film is great fun in that way that 1980/1990s Lovecraft films often are and this segment is a satisfying yarn, even if there are some vague moments in the plot. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.