The buzz has been off the charts for “The Substance” following its May world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best Screenplay. Since then it has only gained momentum, recently showing at the Toronto Independent Film Festival where it took home one of the People’s Choice awards. Now the film heads towards its full release with many considering it a serious Oscar night contender.

“The Substance” is certainly a movie that inspires conversation. It’s a biting satire turned phantasmagorical fever dream with a heavy reliance on grisly body horror and two all-in performances. The film pours every ounce of itself into being provocative and incendiary – something it succeeds and fails at in equal measure. But it remains as fascinating as it is stomach-churning in large part thanks to and in spite of director, writer, co-producer, and co-editor Coralie Fargeat.

An absorbing Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an acclaimed actress who now stars in her own popular television aerobics show called “Sparkle Your Life”. On her 50th birthday she is abruptly fired by her slimeball producer, Harvey (a cartoonish yet appropriately detestable Dennis Quaid). The network wants someone “new”, “young” and “hot”, preferably in the 18-30 age bracket. So Harvey sends out a casting call for Elisabeth’s replacement.

The unexpected move leaves Elisabeth dejected and defeated. Adding to her anxiety, she’s involved in a violent car accident but miraculously escapes unscathed. While getting checked out at the hospital, she’s approached by a young nurse who tells her she is a perfect candidate for a revolutionary secret product. He slips her a flash drive containing information on “The Substance”, a serum from an unknown inventor that claims to empower its user to create “a better version of yourself”.

With little hesitation and even less caution, Elisabeth calls the number and follows the address she’s given to a grimy warehouse district where she picks up her starter kit from a drop-off box. Back in her apartment she opens up the kit that’s full of elixirs, syringes, needles, and tubes. There’s hardly any instructions but Elisabeth somehow knows exactly what to do. She strips naked and injects herself with a green “Activator” serum. What follows is a grotesque sequence that sees Elisabeth writhing in pain on her bathroom floor as her back splits open and a twenty-something version of herself pops out.

Here’s the thing, similar to Joe Dante’s “Gremlins”, there are some very important rules that must be followed. The biggest is that only one version of Elisabeth can be conscious at any given time. Each version is given seven days after which they must switch places with the other version. Failure to follow the rules leads to some pretty gnarly side effects which Fargeat puts on full display in the film’s twisted viscera-filled (and undeniably funny) second half.

Elisabeth’s younger “perfect” self (fiercely played by Margaret Qualley) calls herself Sue and wins the audition to be Elisabeth’s new replacement. Her show “Pump It Up with Sue” becomes a big hit leading an opportunistic Harvey to see dollar signs. He wants to push her even further and Sue quickly grows to love the limelight. But Elisabeth finds herself still alone and resenting her much different other self. Over time animosity forms between Elisabeth and Sue leading to rules being broken with horrific consequences.

The messages of “The Substance” are impossible to miss largely because they’re repeatedly hammered home in nearly every facet of the film. The culture’s warped beauty standards and Hollywood’s patriarchal hierarchy are tops among Fargeat’s interests. But you could also say the movie speaks to the lust for fame, the shallowness of celebrity, and the obsessive pursuit of recapturing youth. Just don’t expect anything beyond what you see on the surface.

Moore and Qualley help elevate the material. They both work hard to overcome a lack of character depth and keep the movie engaging. Their performances have been called “bold” and “daring” – descriptions too often associated with a woman’s willingness to take her clothes off (funny how men aren’t held to the same standard). I prefer to call them “committed” and it’s a good thing they are. They hold our attention and make it easier to look past the film’s lack of interest in making sense of its story. Glaring questions never get answers. Who created the serum? Is it free or experimental? Do they monitor the results? How do they keep something so outrageous a secret? Who knows?

Fargeat’s all-caps direction finds ways to both help and hurt her film. While she and her effects team do some gloriously gruesome things with the body horror, it overwhelms the final act which sees the movie’s thematic edge dulled by its descent into B-movie schlock. But worse, Fargeat commits some of the very same sins she seems to be condemning. Despite her themes, she seems as fascinated with the male gaze as repelled by it. While every man in her film is a leering, predatorial deviant, her camera isn’t much better, often crossing the line into objectification. It’s one of several missteps that undermine what “The Substance” is ultimately going for. “The Substance” hits theaters Friday, September 20th.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

I admit to being a little hesitate after hearing that we were getting an American remake of “Speak No Evil” so soon after the release of the Danish original. That superb and unforgettably disturbing feature film came out in 2022 and remains one of the more tension-soaked and brutally unpleasant thrillers in recent years (read my full review of it HERE).

“Speak No Evil” 2024 comes from writer-director James Watkins whose last film was 2016’s “Bastille Day”. His remake has a lot to live up to and to Watkins’ credit he delivers a fittingly tense and unsettling experience. He clearly has reverence for the 2022 film which shows in his faithfulness to the premise (conceived by brothers Christian and Mads Tafdrup). But where the American version falls short is in its re-fashioned finish. It simply doesn’t have the nerve to take things where its predecessor went.

“Speak No Evil” is helped by an extraordinary cast that includes Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Aisling Franciosi, and an absolutely chilling James McAvoy. McNairy and Davis play Ben and Louise, an American couple living in London with their 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler). We learn later that their marriage is on the rocks which led them to take a family vacation in scenic Tuscany.

While there, Ben and Louise meet Paddy and Ciara (McAvoy and Franciosi), a British couple who are vacationing with their mute son Ant (Dan Hough). The two families hit it off and hang out together several times in the final days of their trips. They then go their separate ways but not before Paddy and Ciara invite their new friends to come visit them sometimes.

Back in London, Ben and Louise receive a postcard from Paddy asking them to come spend a few days on their family farm. At first they’re hesitant – after all they barely know the couple. But they decide to go, thinking the getaway may do their marriage some good. Soon Ben, Louise, and Agnes have made their way to Paddy and Ciara’s remote rural property. It starts out fine, minus a few “misunderstandings”. But over time things get more uncomfortable as a sinister side to Paddy and his seemingly normal family starts to show.

Among the things that impressed me most about this remake is the patience Watkins shows. Rather than rushing things, he allows the tension to slowly build to a simmer. He lets us know pretty early that something is off. But he never fully tips his hand, allowing things to get more and more uneasy before hitting us with its gnarly finish. McAvoy has a knack for playing depraved characters and he really digs into Paddy. He’s crucial to the intensifying sense of dread while Davis is a great foil, conveying what we the audience often feel.

The film’s ending features several deviations from the 2022 feature which allows it to add some unique twists of its own. At the same time, I wish Watkins didn’t pull his punches in the final 15 minutes. He passes on the darker finish, choosing to go the crowd-pleaser route instead. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it adds some extra suspense. But it doesn’t leave us with the same visceral gut-punch either.

“Speak No Evil” still has plenty of frightening moments that will have you squirming in your seat and some unexpected injections of black comedy to get you laughing. Both help the movie form its own identity. While Watkins shows off a keen understanding of tone management and tension-building, he also has the smarts to know when to step back and let his capable cast do the heavy lifting. Overall, Watkins captures enough of original film’s menacing edge while making it easier for mainstream American audiences to stomach. “Speak No Evil” opens in theaters today.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

I tend to be a sucker for cerebral science fiction as it’s one of the more fascinating slices of the sci-fi genre. It generally comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be a movie as seminal as Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, as epic as Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar”, or as contained as Duncan Jones’ “Moon”. It may be something more metaphysical such as Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” or more psychological like James Gray’s “Ad Astra”.

Director Mikael Håfström goes the cerebral route with “Slingshot”, a science fiction thriller that’s less about pulse-pounding action and more about the psychology of its main character played by a well-cast Casey Affleck. The story comes from screenwriters R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker who place us with three astronauts aboard a tight-quartered state-of-the-art ship as it journeys across deep space. It’s their interactions and inevitable tensions that propel the movie. But Adams and Parker pepper their story with flashbacks to add some much needed context.

Affleck plays John, one of three men aboard the Odyssey 1. Their mission has them venturing to Saturn’s largest moon Titan. There they hope to tap into its infinite supply of methane in an effort to create a new clean energy alternative to save a dying Earth. But reaching Titan will be a challenge. It will require a dangerous gravity-assisted slingshot around Jupiter, catapulting them towards Saturn.

Joining John is his commander, Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne) and the team’s engineer, Nash (Tomer Capone). Their long, arduous trip requires 90-day cycles of deep hibernation. In between their three-month sleeps the crew takes time to inspect the ship, confirm their course, get in some exercise, and take psyche evaluations. Then it’s back into their pods for another cycle. But for John, the drugs used to induce hibernation start having side effects. He begins forgetting details from his past. Even more jarring, he occasionally sees visions of Zoe (Emily Beecham), his girlfriend he left behind on Earth.

After yet another cycle, a sudden collision puts a dent in the ship’s hull. The damage sparks a debate on whether to continue the mission or return to Earth. Nash wants to turn around and head home. Franks sees no credible threat to the ship, and with only two more cycles to Jupiter’s orbit, he’s determined to keep going. That leaves John caught in the middle, weighing both positions while masking the psychological toll the mission is taking on him.

Affleck’s performance is tempered to fit a man full of suppressed regret and slowly losing his grip on reality. The 49-year-old has always possessed the ability to keep his feelings bottled up. But he can also convey a quiet intensity that simmers to the point of exploding. Both are key facets and precisely what his character needs. Fishburne is effortlessly rock-solid as usual while Beecham does good with what she’s given, appearing exclusively in flashbacks and giving form to the name and face haunting John.

I’m guessing Håfström worked with a modest budget, but he makes great use of every penny. There are no elaborate set pieces and much like the astronauts, we’re mostly confined to the ship. Yet “Slingshot” is a visually striking movie. Håfström and production designer Barry Chusid conceive a claustrophobic yet believably futuristic ship design with its sterile white interior, bright computer screens, and interesting technology. Meanwhile the flashbacks give us a welcomed reprieve while adding a necessary layer of humanity that comes fully into play during the film’s twist-filled finish. “Slingshot” opens in theaters today.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

Hollywood has been serving up the serial killer movies as of late. In the last few weeks we’ve gotten NEON’s extraordinary “Longlegs”, the not nearly as good “Crescent City”, and M. Knight Shyamalan’s “Trap” which falls somewhere in between. Now we can add a new one to the bunch. “Strange Darling” is the sophomore effort from JT Mollner and it too has a serial killer as its centerpiece. But Mollner has his own unique recipe which separates his film from the others.

“Strange Darling” opens with a creepy scroll clearly inspired by Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”. It informs us that the movie chronicles the last known series of murders committed by one of the country’s most prolific serial killers. From there the film is segmented into six chapters and topped off with an exclamation point epilogue. The film is set in rural Hood River County, Oregon and shot entirely on 35mm film by actor-turned-DP Giovanni Ribisi.

While his story may be chaptered, Mollner makes an interesting choice – he begins midway through with chapter 3. It kicks things off with a bang as we see a terrified young woman only known as the Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) speeding down a country road. Close behind is a man in a black pickup truck who the credits call the Demon (Kyle Gallner). Their high speed chase ends after the Demon shoots out her back glass causing her to crash. The Lady is able to crawl out of the wreckage and escape into the forest before the Demon arrives.

From there Mollner hops from one chapter to another, filling in bits of his story along the way. We learn the Lady and the Demon met at a bar and after some heavy drinking got a room together at a nearby motel. But both learn neither is who they seem to be and their twisted one-night-stand leads to the Lady fleeing with the Demon in pursuit. Other players factor in including an old hippie couple, Frederick (Ed Begley Jr.) and Genevieve (Barbara Hershey). They live in farmhouse deep in the forest where they share doomsday conspiracies and try to fend off imaginary sasquatches.

As Mollner darts from chapter to chapter, it’s tempting to view what he’s doing as pretentious and unnecessary. But just as his storytelling method begins to run out of gas, he hits us with a gonzo twist that sheds a new light on everything we have seen. Instantly his approach is seen as more than just a gimmick. Instead it feels like a well-devised stratagem that alters our focus. The approach also gives a new perspective to a number of critical character choices that propel the story towards its inevitably violent conclusion.

By the time the end credits roll it’s hard not to be wowed with what Mollner has crafted. Not only does he impress with his unconventional storytelling, but he also shows off an auteur’s control. His tone management and ability to build tension are crucial. But it’s clear he also possesses a love for genre and that gives ”Strange Darling” it’s gnarly edge. There are a couple of slow patches, but they dissolve once Mollner kicks things back into gear. And you’ll be glued to the screen as his twisted and often gruesome game of cat-and-mouse plays out. “Strange Darling” is in theaters now.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

A troubled stop-motion animator battles her own macabre creations in what turns out to be a fight for her sanity. That’s the general premise of the aptly titled “Stopmotion”, a chilling psychological horror film and the feature-length debut from director Robert Morgan. There was some good buzz surrounding the movie following its release earlier this year. I can certainly see why.

“Stopmotion” stars a captivating Aisling Franciosi who was so good in last year’s criminally underrated period horror gem “The Last Voyage of the Demeter”. Here she plays Ella Blake, the daughter of an accomplished stop-motion animator, Suzanne (Stella Gonet). Their mother-daughter relationship is a key component of the story. Suzanne is unable to use her hands due to severe arthritis, so she instructs while Ella does the work. “She’s the brains and I’m the hands”, Ella says at one point.

After a severe stroke leaves Suzanne in a coma, Ella determines to finish her mother’s final film. With the help of her boyfriend Tom (Tom York), she rents an apartment and sets up a studio. But making the movie without the overbearing Suzanne in her ear proves difficult. “I don’t have my own voice” she says, revealing the insecurity and lack of self-confidence brought on by her mother’s constant belittlement and lack of support. Things only get worse from there.

While at her apartment, Ella encounters an overly curious and unmannerly young girl (Caoilinn Springall) who takes an immediate interest in her film. The girl calls Ella’s story boring and encourages her to tell a new one. I won’t spoil where things go except to say Ella finds new inspiration in some dark and troubling places. Her stop-motion creations grow more macabre with each iteration and her work of fiction begins to meld with her painful reality.

Morgan’s patient pacing stands out in the first half, but his imagination really kicks into overdrive during the third act. He hits us with crude yet exquisite stop-motion animation sequences. We also get jolts of gruesome body horror that will make even the most hardened horror fan wince. As far as technique, he uses a fascinating assortment of close-ups and shifts in focus to ratchet up the tension and discomfort.

But perhaps most vital is Franciosi’s hypnotic performance. She offers a transfixing portrayal that claws away at Ella’s suppressed emotional trauma, slowly exposing a psychological peril that takes the character to the brink of madness. Franciosi works at just the right temperature – patient yet revealing early on; terrifyingly deranged later. She’s a perfect fit for Morgan’s morbid vision which, like the mortician’s wax used to create Ella’s puppets, takes more sinister forms as the movie descends deeper into its dark and gory depths.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Elizabeth Banks kills it in “Skincare”, a sleek and savvy crime thriller and black comedy hybrid from director Austin Peters. Banks (who also serves as a producer) is the film’s centerpiece and she gets some juicy material to work with from the screenwriting trio of Peters, Sam Freilich, and Deering Regan. The tonal gymnastics aren’t always seamless, but Peters manages with enough verve to make those things easy to look past.

Framed as as fictional story inspired by true events, “Skincare” is loosely based on celebrity facialist Dawn DaLuise. In 2014 DaLuise was wrongly arrested and charged with ordering a hit on competitor Gabriel Suarez who she (also wrongly) believed was behind a plot to sabotage her business. Unable to afford the $1 million bail, DaLuise was forced to spend ten months in jail while awaiting trial. When her trial finally began, she was acquitted in under one hour.

“Skincare” borrows a lot from the true account while adding its own incisive spin. Set in 2013, Banks plays Hope Goldman, a celebrity aesthetician and the owner and namesake of a Hollywood skincare studio. Hope is in full promotional mode as she’s only days away from launching her own line of skincare products. But underneath the glamorous facade, a cash-strapped Hope struggles to maintain her high-end salon while dodging her landlord Jeff (John Billingsley) and his attempts to collect past-due rent.

Things take a more dire turn after an up-and-coming facialist named Angel (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens a boutique across the plaza. It doesn’t take long for Angel to become the talk of Tinseltown and soon Hope starts losing high-profile clients to her new rival. She even loses her guest spot on a popular daytime television talk show hosted by a schmoozing and appropriately slimy Nathan Fillion.

But what really turns Hope’s world upside down is when her email is hacked and a humiliating fake message is sent out to all of her clients. Shortly after, vulgar and aggressively explicit posts start popping up online in her name. The harassment turns even more menacing after she discovers her tires slashed. Hope immediately suspects Angel, but without any evidence the police won’t act. In the meantime she steadily hemorrhages customers while Angel’s business booms.

Hope has a chance encounter with a peppy Hollywood newbie named Jordan (Lewis Pullman). He’s a self-proclaimed life coach and wellness guru who agrees to help her counteract the intensifying attacks and rebuild her image. But things only get worse from there as Hope’s obsession with success is only rivaled by her fixation on Angel. It spins the knotty yet comical yarn into a pulpy cautionary tale about the lengths people will go to get what they want and how an out-of-control desire for notoriety can have damaging consequences.

As the story unwinds Peters shrewdly immerses us in the upscale Hollywood milieu while also dipping our toes in the city’s seedier side. A variety of supporting characters fill it all out with the best being an underused Michaela Jaé Rodriguez as Hope’s assistant and head of PR. But the movie works thanks to a committed and perfectly tuned Elizabeth Banks whose textured performance is the glue that holds it all together.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS