The Substance

Plenty of exemplary body horror films have been made utilizing the genre’s trappings in service of rendering discussions of addiction and mental illness palatable to a wider audience. The biggest achievement made with “The Substance”, for as good as so much of it is, might be that it’s also an outstanding comedy. This is a film that interrupts the most critical moment of its third act with a punchline of a textbox, which would destroy the pace and feel of the moment if it weren’t both riotously humorous and appropriate summary of what the film had been doing all along.

10