A Substância

[Moore's]gripping in ways the rest of the picture is not, transcending the thesis points and comic exaggerations simply by playing against the comic extremes and holding a card or two, always, in reserve.

With wit, style and ruthlessness, Fargeat has made a movie that's an example of the soulless pop-culture object she's spoofing.

It's all in service of obvious ideas about the intertwined pressures of sexism and the spotlight, themes too little developed to sustain the nightmarish, queasily satirical fantasia splashed and spattered atop them.

"The Substance," Coralie Fargeat's mirror-haunted gory fable about fame, self-hatred and the terror that accompanies an identity constructed on the backs of other people's stares.

Demi Moore seizes the role of her lifetime as a movie star turned fitness guru who gets axed for committing the cardinal sin of aging. You've never seen anything like the body horrors in Coralie Fargeat's gory and glorious takedown of youth obsession.

Wickedly audacious and boldly over-the-top, "The Substance" is a biting, hilarious and stomach-churningly disgusting satire of modern beauty standards and Hollywood's obsession with youth, staged as a deranged midnight movie freak-out.

Fargeat approaches her material with a hatchet, hacking methodically away but rarely sculpting with any nuance.

Pushes everything past the point of moderation and decency until it becomes a riotous discourse on the personal and cultural forces that drive women to madness in search of physical perfection.

It's absolutely full of moments of really full-on -- and I mean REALLY full-on -- theatrical gasp-inducing horror that makes you go [GASP].

If there's a critique to be made about the film, it's that the satire and caricatures are a bit heavy-handed, with most of the male characters being not-so-subtle misogynists. But that overkill is part of what makes it so much fun.

"Old age ain't no place for sissies," Bette Davis once famously quipped, and neither is "The Substance." This bloody body horror satire is sure to have viewers gasping and laughing throughout, especially during its over-the-top finale.

With this cross between David Cronenberg body horror and Sunset Boulevard, Moore inserts herself into the Oscar conversation, giving a performance that is both literally naked and operatically dark.

"Gross" does not do justice to this movie's anatomical perversions. Every ticket sold should come with a commemorative barf bag.

If it weren't for Moore and Qualley hurling themselves into the shared role, it'd be as flat as a scotch-taped pin-up. If it weren't for Moore, I'm not even sure it would work.

Fargeat delivers a macabre, funny, tragic, absurd and grotesque Grand Guignol of butts and guts; a bonkers and brutal "beauty horror" that elevates the genre to a hysterically unprecedented heights.

The Substance is a horrifically absurd exploration of Hollywood's obsession with beauty.

The last 20 or so minutes of this movie - the best part - is wall-to-wall, nonstop blood and gore, mostly done with those old-school practical effects fans like me prefer. The delightful yuck factor made me forgive the film's numerous problems.

Falls into the category of films that men like to claim as feminist.

Extraordinary... This is daring and stylish.

For my money, one of the best things you can do this season is to run to see the French director Coralie Fargeat's The Substance while it is still playing on the big screen.