DREAM STORY

I’ve been in a real Eyes Wide Shut phase these last couple of weeks. A lot of deep-dive overly analytical videos on the film have been recommended to me on Instagram recently and I have to admit that some of them make some interesting points. 

 

The film also trended on Twitter the other day and it’s being pushed on Tubi (where I ended up watching it). Much like when C-19 shut the world down in March of 2020 and everyone was rushing to post their thoughts/reviews/feelings on Safe, Outbreak, Contagion and other virus-related movies, I think a lot of the recent Epstein and Diddy news has people trying to connect all of that to Eyes Wide Shut and anything EWS-related.

I guess this blog post means I’m participating…


Outside of hardcore Eyes Wide Shut Fans, it seems like folks don’t realize that there are three other film adaptations of the original source material: Traumnovelle. Two films before EWS (Traumnovelle and Il cavaliere, la morte e il diavolod) and one recent adaptation from 2024 (Dream Story). I don’t even think a lot of hardcore Kubrick fans acknowledge this. I didn't even know the most recent adaptation existed until recently. It isn't good but it's also fascinating to me.

You would think someone like me with a blog like PINNLAND would jump at the opportunity to make comparisons and sidebysides, but it’s kind of pointless. Someone also did the work for me (the 1983 Italian version is left out but you get the idea).

  

There is certainly a nice-sized Venn diagram crossover of Eyes Wide Shut cultists and diehard Kubrick fans, but there are separate groups that don’t always intermingle. Believe it or not - there are online communities of folks that are obsessed with Eyes Wide Shut that don’t necessarily care about all the Easter eggs in The Shining or the historical details of Barry Lyndon.

Personally, I find the diehard Stanley Kubrick fans that are obsessed with combing every detail of every one of his films to be the most interesting people. Sometimes they make outrageous claims and their theories are incredibly forced, but I still find them to be fascinating and sometimes incredibly knowledgeable.
The EWS folks have a lot in common with hardcore Boards Of Canada fans. I fall in to the unique Venn Diagram of people that love BoC’s music, Kubrick’s films and Eyes Wide Shut as a standalone entity outside of Kubrick's filmography. About three months ago I joined the Boards Of Canada Reddit group and immediately made the correlation between those people and EWS people.

For those that aren’t familiar with Board of Canada - they’re an electronic music duo from Scotland that relies heavily on Easter eggs, half-truths, occult imagery and anonymity. One could make a fairly easy argument that these elements describe both Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut.

Occult man-made circles, pentagrams, hexagrams, stars and other images are often associated with BoC’s music and Eyes Wide Shut.


Obsessive fandom can sometimes be incredibly informative even if they're base is rooted in batshit crazy theories. I do think it’s important to be overly familiar with Stanley Kubrick’s filmography and style of filmmaking when dissecting Eyes Wide Shut. He’s famous for his attempts at accuracy, OCD-like work-rate and avoiding continuity errors. This makes his work more intriguing in my older age because for someone so supposedly obsessed with “perfection”, there are a lot of possible plot holes and intentional continuity errors in some of his films. I like to think that Kubrick has been messing with his audience on purpose much like how most of the characters surrounding Dr. Harford in the story of Traumnovelle/Eyes Wide Shut have been messing with him (and how Boards of Canada loves to mess with their fans).


The first two adaptions of Traumnovelle are lesser known because they're basiclly B-movies. And on a personal note - they just aren’t very good (the 1983 Italian iteration is quite goofy). The most recent adaptation isn’t good either but it’s kind of fascinating for a variety of reasons.

On one hand, Dream Story is trying to stay true to the source material but with a modern twist. The basic premise is still there. A doctor stumbles upon multiple levels/worlds of sexual perversions after his ego is bruised from learning that his wife has sexual desires for another man (an underground organization of powerful elites may or may not be behind a chunk of the doctor’s discoveries). It’s best to not judge this movie from the trailer. It looks like an SNL skit parodying Eyes Wide Shut. On some level Dream Story does try to take from Kubrick's adaptation but there are some differences.
This time around director Florian Frerichs throws in more surreality, elaborate dream sequences and elements of S&M that aren’t in the other movie adaptions. Eyes Wide Shut certainly plays around with reality and throws in a dream sequences/fantasy, but it’s not the same. Dreams Story has total breaks in reality way more frequently. But because Eyes Wide Shut is also a modern retelling of Traumnovelle starring two major movie stars directed by one of the most legendary filmmakers - Dream Story will always be in the shadow of Kubrick.

Eyes Wide Shut aside, Dream Story does itself no favors. The acting is flat, the chemistry between the actors is almost non existent and Florian Frerichs clearly takes from Eyes Wide Shut as if we don't see it. Sometimes word for word! This is fascinating to me. Has there ever been a cinematic remake/adaptation/reinterpretation that tries to stay true to the original literary source material but also lifts/borrows/steals/copies from one of a previous cinematic iteration? Maybe John Carpenter's The Thing? 


Dream Story is really only made for people that are Traumnovelle/Eyes Wide Shut completists or folks that stay up late and watch random stuff on tubi when they can't sleep. I guess I’m somewhere in between.

SISU *UPDATED*

Deleting Nazis is always a good thing. I think what draws so many of us to movies like Sisu is that we get to cheer on grotesque over-the-top violence because Nazis are on the receiving end of it. That was certainly one of the reasons I watched it. Violence against murderous racist nationalists wasn’t the only reason but it was certainly thee biggest selling point. As “gritty” and violent as this movie is, it’s still very cartoonish and intentionally silly. It isn’t rooted in reality. Outside of the basic plot involving a retired mercenary/gold prospector murdering Nazis that are trying to steal his gold, this movie owes a lot to the western genre which is also rooted in fantasy.

If you aren't a fan of movies with lots of references & homages then this may not be for you. The references aren't as obvious as a Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez movie, but there are still plenty...

The biggest influences style-wise were a lot of old Western movies - Jalmari Helander, loudandclearreviews.com

Stagecoach / Sisu


Stagecoach / Sisu

Hang 'Em High / Sisu

Sisu also owes a lot to First Blood...

I could talk a whole day about this. What First Blood did to me when / was 10 years old basically changed my life - Jalmari Helander, Collider.com

First Blood / Sisu

First Blood / Sisu

While There will Be Blood isn’t a gun-slinging cowboy movie, it is technically a western that’s about striking it rich much like Sisu...

There Will be Blood / Sisu

Even western-influenced films like the Mad Max saga seems to have rubbed off on Sisu. This could, and probably is, coincidental but the similarities are still there...

You could argue Mad Max is a western with wheels - George Miller, cinemadaily

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

The Road Warrior / Sisu

This is a movie that many have jumped to compare to Inglorious Basterds. I get it. On the most surface of levels these are two movies set during World War II that use the same loophole where we’re allowed to cheer on violence & murder because it’s against Nazis. Again - I’m totally ok with that. The problem is Inglorious Basterds goes too far and misses the mark because they try to rewrite history by murdering Adolf Hitler with machine guns. It sort of cheapens history and makes it cartoonish when it wasn’t. This is nothing new and I wouldn’t put this entire criticism on Inglorious Basterds. For decades the media has made Hitler out to be this cartoonish villain when in reality he was a very real person that was very very evil. Again - this is bigger than Quentin Tarantino. Movies have been doing this with Nazis and Hitler for a very long time. One minute they're fumbling idiots and the next minute they're evil masterminds (JoJo Rabbit is good example of this).
Tarantino does the same thing with Django Unchained and slavery. And folks ate it up. Especially Black folks. Jaimie Foxx whips a white plantation owner so somehow that makes everything even (I'm obviously joking but the way people cheered that movie on you would have thought that was the case). Making chattel slavery out to be a blaxploitation story just cheapens and almost lightens the atrocity that was American chattel slavery. Again - Django Unchained is hardly the first movie to do this with, but its existence certainly doesn’t help. I just don’t like revenge fan-fiction with real life events (that’s why I took issue with ending of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood)

There are some super obvious visual comparisons that can be made between Inglorious and Sisu but what I find most interesting are things like both directors using chapters/title cards the break up their respective stories...

Inglorious Basterds / Sisu

Tarantino's potential influence/connections aside, this is a fun movie with some fun scenes and good movie references/homages. Fans of all the movies I mentioned in this post will get a kick out of it.

Dr Strangelove / Sisu

SINNERS *UPDATED*

I’ve come to the harsh realization that while Get Out is a movie I still enjoy – it has become more of a curse than anything else. I don’t know what it is but almost any prominent movie or television show to feature Black people dealing with issues concerning race and/or racism has to be analyzed through the lens of Get Out. It’s like a default setting. And the plots to a lot of these movies don’t do anything to shake this perception. Almost everything is some variation of “watch out for those white women” or “beware of the white boogeyman” or “watch out for those outsiders”. There are obviously a few exceptions but when you list everything off you’ll see that I’m right. Lovecraft Country, Them, Ma, Queen & Slim, Run Sweetheart Run, Opus, The Front Room, Tyrell, Master, Alice, Tales From The Hood Part 2, etc. They all have strands of Get Out’s DNA. Recently they put all nuance aside and made a psychological thriller called Karen about a racist white woman that terrorizes a Black couple. There are more cases but I think the 12 examples I just gave from the last five years alone proves my point. If not – perhaps you’re just a contrarian that wants to mindlessly disagree with everything. I’m well aware that movies like Dutchman, Murder In Harlem and Story Of A Three Day Pass existed decades prior. But filmmakers haven't taken from those movies like they've taken from Get Out.

I say all this because even though Sinners falls somewhere between Good/fine/entertaining (I personally found everything non-vampire related to be the most interesting), it still has the stench of "Get Out-sploitation". On one hand, it isn’t Ryan Coogler’s fault that everyone’s critique of this film is some insufferable super personalized think piece about race or the role of Black people in society or the so-called dangers of interracial relationships between Black men & White women (it's always only Black men and white women and never a critique on any other type of interracial relationship). It’s par for the course. Folks put a lot of weight on movies & television shows. For some reason a large sector of Black folks would rather seek validation about their Blackness from a movie or a TV show instead of real life. But at the same time – Coogler has to know that a movie with a predominately Black cast set in 1930’s Mississippi where a group of white vampires terrorize a Black establishment is going to bring on this type of dialogue. Outside of the basic premise which lies somewhere between Night Of The Living Dead and The Thing from Another World, Sinners has all the standard elements & themes I brought up earlier like; “beware of the white boogeyman” and “watch out for those white women”. 

Outside of the basic story about a group of characters trying to survive a vampire coup, Coogler made a genuine effort to touch on everything from the great migration to the history of Black Americans and their African roots. I don’t think everything was a success but I’m still glad I watched it on the big screen. Streaming Sinners at home won’t give you the same experience. I found some of the character’s decisions in the second half of the movie to be very stupid but I’ll give Ryan Coogler the benefit of the doubt on that. Perhaps he wanted to bring back that old school feeling of shouting at the screen when someone makes a stupid decision in a horror movie. I certainly found myself talking to the screen when someone does something dumb. This is clearly a movie that’s more than just a simple vampire movie so there is room for a deeper analysis. But reading through a lot of people’s tweets, tiktoks, letterboxd reviews and social media rants exposed that some folks needs to touch grass, go to therapy or do a combination of both. Good lord. You could argue that I'm giving too much attention to the opinions of people online. But if you think these aren't real life opinions then you're being naive....

*SPOILER* Mary & Stack proceed to stay together for 60+ years and counting but please tell me more about how they weren't together for a long time...

Notice the critique is just about Black men bringing white women into our spaces and nothing about Black women bringing white men into our spaces when the main villain in the film is in fact a white male vampire. God forbid...

 

And if you don’t want to go to therapy – watch more movies.

I’m happy that a filmmaker like Ryan Coogler remains successful but if there’s one thing that Sinners exposed it's that people need to watch more movies. You would have thought this was the first vampire movie ever. And if not Sinners, you would have thought that From Dusk Till Dawn was the first vampire movie to do what it did (…it wasn’t). For those that don't know, many people are saying that Sinners “stole” from From Dusk Till Dawn. 

@thestorytimeguy I love the movie Sinners but... its From Dusk Till Dawn #Sinners #fromdusktilldawn #vampires ♬ original sound - Matthew Torres

To that claim I will reemphasize that people need to watch more movies. From Dusk Till Dawn is a collage movie much like Pulp Fiction. It’s an homage to a handful of pre-existing genres. Last time I checked, the basic premise of Sinners is very similar to Ernest Dickerson’s Demon Knight (a movie released a year before From Dusk Till Dawn), which got it’s basic premise from George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead (Dickerson worked under and learned from Romero before he became a director himself). Again – watch more movies before you decide to step out there and be loud & wrong.

Night Of The Living Dead / Sinners

Night Of The Living Dead /
Sinners

Demon Knight /
Sinners

Demon Knight / Sinners

Outside of Night Of The Living Dead by way of Demon Knight, Sinners also borrows from typical sources like The Shining

   

The Shining /
Sinners

And John Carpenter...

it's actually quite close to THE FACULTY, which is a remake of THE THING, which is one of my favorite movies. Definitely my favorite horror movie. So there's a lot of Carpenter in the film as well - Ryan Coogler

The Thing / Sinners

The Thing / Sinners

During Coogler's recent visit to the criterion closet he also namedropped Michael Mann's Thief as a another source of inspiration. Without spoiling too much - the endings to both films are pretty similar...

Thief / Sinners

Coogler also mentions the importance of Carl Franklin's Devil In A Blue Dress

Thief / Sinners

Whatever criticisms I may have about Sinners really doesn’t matter. It’s a major success. My words won't sway any box office numbers (to be clear – I think this movie should be seen by as many people as possible). I just thought it would be nice to present a slightly more sane perspective on the movie.

TIMESTALKER

I don’t always mean to force a connection between two unrelated films but there’s no other way for me to praise Alice Lowe’s Timestalker without bringing up Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast. Both movies are darkly comedic time traveling love stories involving stalkers that subconsciously reference the work of David Lynch. 

David Lynch has always been a big inspiration, as well, and you can definitely see the inheritance of that in the film - Alice Lowe, Filmmaker Magazine

Eraserhead / Timestalker

There’s a lot more to both movies but those basic similarities combined with the fact that they were both released within a year of each other makes the comparison more than understandable. It’s like when Cronenberg’s Crash and Lynch’s Lost Highway both got released around the same time. Yeah they’re different but on a surface level, they’re both existential hyper-sexual films that sort of focus on automobile-based eroticism. Or, more recently, Fincher’s The Killer and Linklater’s Hitman. both movies are incredibly different but at the same time, it would be weird to not draw some comparison between two new hitman movies where the protagonists screw up big time and have to correct their errors.

I’ve been a fan/defender of Bonello’s work for more than 20 years but I found his time traveling stalker story to be a bit disappointing. I know I’m in the minority on this. Most folks love The Beast. I just thought it kind of lingered on and took forever to come to an end. I appreciate the audaciousness of it all and the subconscious nods to folks like Leos Carax, David Lynch and Maya Deren. But at the end of the day it just didn’t move me (click here to read my thoughts from 2023).

I hate bringing down one movie to prop up another but Timestalker is what everyone thinks The Beast is.

Lowe has compared her own film to Baby Reindeer. Like Timestalker, Baby Reindeer is another UK-based story about a stalker that takes place over a few different time periods. This pairing makes sense but it’s kind of driving me crazy how more folks aren’t making the connection between The Beast and Timestalker. It’s like when Cronenberg’s eXistenZ came out a few weeks after The Matrix. Again - both movies are different but also very similar. Even today, rarely do you see many parallels drawn between the two movies but they’re both “virtual reality” sci-fi stories where characters use their bodies as ports to log in to another dimension. And they both played in theaters at the same time! 

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t draw a comparison between Timestalker and one of the most famous time traveling movies of all time: Highlander. Lowe has said herself that outside of folks like Lynch, Powell and Pressburger, etc that she was inspired by a lot of pop culture movies from the 80s.

Timestalker is really influenced by eighties films, which had a fun way of dealing with massive ideas. This boy traveling back in time with his mum fancying him, which was a big mainstream hit! The eighties got away with dealing with complex matters in a light way. I miss that we don't really get to explore these fun and fresh ideas, because we don't get those sort of conceptual films anymore - Alice Lowe, themoviewaffler.com

Recently on twitter Lowe said the similarities to Highlander were not intentional but I couldn't resist making a side-by-side. There’s even a duel scene in both films!

Highlander / Timestalker

I've always been really influenced by Powell and Pressburger - Alice Lowe, Filmmaker Magazine

Black Narcissus / Timestalker

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp / Timestalker

A Matter of Life and Death / Timestalker

Tales Of Hoffmann / Timestalker

Normally I don’t like comparing anything to Stanley Kubrick in 2025 because what movie isn’t influenced by him on some level? But Lowe used some of the techniques in Eyes Wide Shut for Prevenge so it isn’t out of line to assume the same techniques were used for Timestalker.

I said to the DoP that I found the thematic use of artificial coloured lights throughout Eyes Wide Shut really creepy, and I wanted to try and get some of that - Alice Lowe, BFI 

Eyes Wide Shut / Timestalker

Timestalker is the story of a perpetually reincarnated woman (“Agnes”) who finds herself falling in love with the same man over and over no matter what time period she finds herself in. It’s easy to read this as a basic female-driven story about finding yourself caught up in a redundant dating loop or falling in love with the same type of men over and over again and having it go nowhere. And that would make sense. I just suspect there’s more. It’s been over 8 years between Pervenge and Timestalker. I can’t help but think this movie is Lowe working through the frustrations of trying getting a film made and be a consistent director. There’s a lot of runaround and disappointment when it comes to getting a film off the ground. Meetings, scraping together budgets & resources, asking favors, etc. At a certain point, low/mid budget filmmaking has to feel like an endless loop much like Agnes finds herself in Timestalker. 

It’s best to go in to Timestalker without any preconceived notions of Lowe’s debut. Prevenge is a personal psychological horror about motherhood. Timestalker can’t really be categorized as easily. On one hand it’s a psychological time traveling period drama. But it’s also a dark comedy science fiction story about a stalker sort of being stalked herself. The same dark humor and quick spurts of violence in Prevenge can be found in Timestalker but that’s about it (and even the violence in Timestalker is more gruesome and over the top than in Prevenge). This is new territory for Lowe that she handles masterfully.

MILK & SERIAL

Found footage horror movies can be insufferable and often times dumb, but every few years or so a new film comes along and manages to do something slightly new within the genre that I like. Nothing groundbreaking or “genre reinventing”. Just fun and entertaining. At this point, a big part of making a watchable/somewhat believable found footage movie is finding a new-yet-logical explanation as to why someone keeps the camera rolling during the chaos. Today, everyone is always filming & posting themselves on all forms of social media so that part of the story is kind of easy to pull off. Someone is streaming and/or going live at any given moment. There’s also an even bigger uptick in youtube/Instagram/tik-tok prank videos which, staged or not, are usually mean-spirited & cruel. And they only get more & more cruel because each prankster wants to outdo and one-up the last person. Everyone wants to go viral. I’m kind of surprised more modern horror films haven’t capitalized on this subject matter instead of all the easter egg/symbol-heavy grief-porn horror films that currently plague the genre. 

I know this sounds preachy on my part but folks are incredibly desensitized and have a warped sense of reality now more than ever. Likes, followers, and going viral are equal currency to some folks. Curry Barker’s Milk & Serial touches on all the mean-spirited online pranks and the desensitization of young people without being too preachy and finger wagging...

A Clockwork Orange / Milk & Serial

This is bound to be compared to the cinema of Quentin Tarantino due to it’s non-linear format, but this reminded me of a really good hour-long Mr Show sketch where the twist has an additional twist (the film centers around a prank inside of a prank that goes too far between a group of friends). Curry Barker is a young cinephile so the usual unavoidable suspects like; Tarantino and a base-level understanding of the violent side of Kubrick are all within the DNA of this movie but it would be unfair to stop there (it also shouldn't even need to be said but Quentin Tarantino didn't invent non-linear storytelling). There’s more to this movie than non-linear storytelling and visual homages to classic cinema. Young creatives aren’t always given the credit they deserve. Older folks like to sometimes underestimate the creativity of younger people because there’s this unwritten rule that anyone younger than you doesn’t know anything. But in my opinion, Milk & Serial is way more mature than you’d expect (especially considering it was made by someone in their early 20s). The music, the tone, the ambiance, everything. This is the kind of film that could be a gateway to stuff like early Haneke. Milk & Serial certainly has the same mean-spiritedness of something like Benny’s Video or Funny Games… 

Benny's Video / Milk & Serial

After a recent re-watch I'm really starting to suspect Barker might be a fan of Haneke's late period stuff as well...

Benny's Video / Milk & Serial

A coincidental callback to possibly the most popular found-footage movie ever...

The Blair Witch Project / Milk & Serial

The final moments are also similar to the final moments of the pre-found footage classic; Man Bites Dog

Man Bites Dog / Milk & Serial

This is an hour-long youtube movie so I completely understand why it didn’t get the same hype as something like Cuckoo, Late Night With The Devil, Longlegs or even In A Violent Nature, but if you’re looking for an alternative to all the disappointing horror films from this year (sorry but almost everything that’s been hyped up this year was a letdown for me personally), Milk & Serial is easy to access.

THE SUBSTANCE

*SPOILERS*

It’s no mystery that this movie was influenced by David Cronenberg. I’ll even go so far as to say the influence is slightly deeper than just surface-level visuals. Most filmmakers that claim to be influenced by Cronenberg have this naive understanding of his movies that’s kind of embarrassing. Much like how a shot of a dark road at night or something “weird” doesn’t automatically equate “Lynchian” or a tense shot of a doorknob slowly turning doesn’t equate “Hitchcockian”, something “gross” or gory doesn’t automatically mean it’s Cronenberg-ian. The Substance straddles the line. On one hand you cant deny the filmmaker’s own words and inspirations:

One of the filmmakers that really impacted me as a teen was David Cronenberg, all those relationships to the flesh and to transforming the body and how that changes how you can be seen, Coralie Fargeat, Film School Rejects

Videodrome / The Substance

Videodrome / The Substance

a movie like THE FLY is a perfect example of this. And movies like eXistenZ, which had a very weird way of dealing with the body, with sexuality and with violence - Coralie Fargeat, Film School Rejects

The Fly / The Substance

The Fly / The Substance

The Fly / The Substance

eXistenZ / The Substance

eXistenZ / The Substance

eXistenZ / The Substance

Cronenberg who opened the door for me to do weirder stuff - Coralie Fargeat, James Whale Blake

Naked Lunch / The Substance

Scanners / The Substance

Shivers / The Substance

Rabid / The Substance

Naked Lunch / The Substance

Shivers / The Substance

Crash / The Substance

And not to contradict what I said earlier but there is an understandable surface-level amount of David Lynch in The Substance as well. I think it’s wrong to label Joseph Merrick as a “monster” (that would mean you completely missed the point of Elephant Man) but the visual similarities are there…

The Elephant Man was a very strong representation of a monstrous figure, especially because the film was based on someone who existed – Coarlie Fargeat, rogerebert.com

Elephant Man / The Substance

Eraserhead / The Substance

Kubrick

The Shining / The Substance

Carpenter

The Thing / The Substance

But at the same time – the comparison is also kind of lazy. David Cronenberg didn’t invent “body horror”. He might be the greatest at conveying it on the big screen but he certainly doesn’t own it. If anything, The Substance should fit in more with films like Freaked, Parents, Society, Tetsuo The Ironman, The Dark Backward, etc. Horror comedies don’t take themselves seriously…

Freaked / The Substance

The Dark Backward / The Substance

Tetsuo The Ironman / The Substance

I can’t stress how much this film really reminded me of Brian Yuzna’s work (Society)…

Society / The Substance

I’d also throw Stuart Gordon’s work in there also. 

From Beyond / The Substance

I guess that’s my only other grip with this movie. The Substance should be a dark horror comedy that doesn’t take itself seriously but unfortunately it does. You don’t need me to tell you what it’s about. Anyone that’s seen the trailer or just read a synopsis knows this is a movie about the ugly side of aging in Hollywood mixed with Jekyll & Hyde. The commentary is so on the nose that it should’ve been a completely silly goofball comedy. The director's vision of America is also very intentionally cartoon-ish. Why not just stay in that pocket for the whole movie? Unfortunately I’m pretty sure the director thinks she’s expressing some new revolutionary message when she isn’t. The packaging and presentation might be new-ish, but the basic tale is as old as time. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the movie stars two veteran A-list actors (Demi Moore & Denis Quaid) with quite a bit of real life plastic surgery. This isn’t a judgement towards either of them. You do what you have to do to keep working. It’s just the surgery they’ve had done is very obvious to someone like myself that grew up watching them over the years. Demi Moore is certainly the star of the film and it’s told from a women’s perspective but it would be foolish to not mention Denis Quaid and his obvious plastic surgery.

So much of Demi Moore’s career has revolved around her looks and her age. I really couldn’t imagine anyone else playing the lead in this movie. That’s actually one of the most interesting things about The Substance - before the movie goes off the deep end, the close up shots of all the aging plastic surgery faces comes off just as visceral as the intense body horror elements in the second half.

No matter what criticisms I may have about this film, Coarlie Fargeat still swung for the fences and caught a nice piece of the ball. I have the upmost respect for that. No matter how important this movie thinks it is, it's definitely different from anything else out right now.