Horror is not a complete stranger to the Oscars, but it’s often left out of the top tier categories of the ceremony. The first horror movie to win Best Picture in the history of the Awards was Silence of the Lambs (1991), and it went big. It also picked up statues for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director. The years before and after that win proved to be quite dry for the genre. In fact, technical nominations are the rule when it comes to horror. Sound mixing, costume, make-up, editing, these are the categories they have a better chance of being included in (much like this year’s Nosferatu). Best Actress is the other area where horror has gotten notable recognition, with Kathy Bates (Misery), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), and Jodie Foster (Silence of the Lambs) all scoring wins in the field. And even then, they’re not a mainstay.
There’s a sense that the Oscars only consider horror when the films under consideration measure up to a level of drama and sophistication that doesn’t fall victim to the nastier, bloodier, and gorier aspects of the genre. This is why the inclusion of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance in the Best Picture category feels like a potential turning point. And that’s in addition to the Best Actress (Demi Moore) and Best Director (Fargeat) nods.
The Substance is an intentionally loud and messy work of body horror that hammers its ageing and toxic beauty messages with a nuclear-powered jackhammer. A celebrity called Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) reaches her 50th birthday and is immediately confronted with the possibility of being replaced by a younger woman in her own exercise show. Elisabeth is presented with a radical treatment called The Substance that creates a younger and more beautiful version of yourself so you can keep on living your best life. Addiction to the new lifestyle kicks in and physical transformation threatens to put everything on a unique path to self-destruction. Margaret Qualley plays the other version of Elisabeth, called Sue.
Director Fargeat showcases an exceptional use of practical effects work here. They’re gross, but never inconsequential. They build on the story and its subjects. In fact, the movie focuses a lot of its confrontational energy on them, meaning that audiences will have to wade through copious amounts of bodily fluids and gaping wounds to engage with its messages. But the magic isn’t all in the gore. Once the younger version of Elisabeth comes out, Fargeat takes to a shinier and glossier aesthetic that highlights Sue’s body, imbuing it with a sexual energy that makes every time she’s on screen feel like a disturbingly aggressive advertisement for youth and the means to keep it forever. Sue’s butt is shown every other minute, it seems, to drive the point home.
Had this movie come out in the 1980s, it would easily have been considered trashy. In other words, not Oscar material. The Substance is the kind of movie vintage Peter Jackson would be proud of, given to excess and bluntness for an in-your-face kind of satire that leaves little room for interpretation. It’s about how messy we’re willing to be to get what we want, and how disgusting that process can be. It reminds somewhat of Brian Yuzna’s 1989 body horror film Society, in which extreme wealth and privilege breed a community of fleshy monsters that stand as reflections of human greed. Yuzna crafts one of the strangest and most unsettling orgies in horror, notable for its monstrosity rather than any kind of sexiness (something it most definitely is not).
The Substance doesn’t pretend to be a cut above other examples of body horror. It’s proud to be a part of it. Additionally, it doesn’t come off as an award chaser. In a sense, its nomination can be seen as a correction of long-standing biases that still permeate within the industry, the same that have prevented other great horror movies from sharing space in that highly exclusive real-estate that the Oscars hold the keys to. Controversial though these awards may be (especially in terms of what gets and doesn’t get nominated, or how certain movies get preferential treatment because of how they color and inform the public face of the moviemaking business), they still afford a degree of visibility that can help put certain movies within eyesight of wider audiences.
The Substance’s Oscar nominations are good for horror. They signify an expansion of influence and of possibility. It suggests there might be a more willing group of critics out there that are finally ready to recognize the work coming from the genre. And if it brings more horror into these fancy awards shows, then the traditional biopics, historical dramas, and slice-of-life indie flicks that have dominated before will have to get used to rubbing elbows with a new wave of monsters desperate for their own golden statues.
