Body Horror and Restored Faith
I've made a project for myself, to fall back in love with films. To leave the Little Screen of Death in another room and actually focus on what I am watching. Slowly working through my watchlist, and tonight I came round to Coralie Fargeat's The Substance (2025) with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.
I am awed by how beautifully the composition and cinematography is, and how visceral and disturbing both thematically and visually it is. Especially for a film that has achieved such mainstream attention.
Monsterous beauty
Wow... The Substance... just... wow... I’ve been a fan of body horror for ages, since I first saw Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986), and especially Tsukamoto Shinya’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989). It is a long and terrible list, and The Substance ranks near the top of it. We’ve really been spoiled lately with good horror films. Sinners (2025), Weapons (2025), Alien: Romulus (2024). And there are still a lot of good things on my watchlist. The Ugly Stepsister (2025), 28 Years Later (2025), The Monkey (2025), Mother of Flies (2025)...
For ages and ages, too long to count, I’ve been out of touch with film in general, and especially —my favorite genre— horror. Ironic in the age of always ready at the tip of your finger streaming services. I’ve been spoilt for choice. Too much by far. Too many possibilities, I’ve been paralyzed whenever I’ve sat down and fired up Netflix. Because while it was great years ago, these days that is algorithmically spewed garbage for the most. Something to put on in the background while I scroll away at the Little Screen of Death.
I’ve been trying to move away from the constant push of algorithms and the doomscrolling, trying to fall back in love with film. It started some years ago with getting a Blu-ray player so that I could watch my (dusty) collection of DVDs and Blu-ray’s (it is wonderful to have physical media). Then I said bye-bye to Netflix (Editor’s note: I switched to HBO and also kept Apple TV —there is nothing inherently wrong with streaming services, as long as one use them in the ‘correct manner’) same as I had said bye-bye to Spotify earlier (Editor’s note 2: I quit Spotify because a) they treat artists like shit b) they take money from Maga Fascism, and c) the Guy in Charge used the money he earned from Spotify to invest into AI warfare. I am now using Qobuz instead for streaming purposes —who treat the artists much better— but mostly use a Sony Walkman MP3 player). Getting your head out of the constant stream of algorithmically pushed content is like finally catching your breath after drowning in a mountain river. The fresh air hits you in the face, cold stings you and reminds you that you are alive, and you can hear the silence that overwhelms the drone of the stream. (That metaphor is reaching hard)
Slowing down and deliberately engaging with works of art, instead of consuming culture, is —for lack of a better word— liberating. Refreshing. Ironic that a bloody, gory, horrible —yet beautiful— film like The Substance should leave me feeling so positive. So refreshed.
It’s not that there hasn’t been a lot of good horror movies in the last years, but these streaming services —Netflix particularly in my experience— try to push so much down you through that you can hardly breathe and actually choose what you want to watch, so you end up putting on the same brain rot show you’ve seen a thousand times. For me, it all came to a head during the pandemic, when streaming became... not more important, but more significant in our lives. You’re paralyzed by choice when you sit down and open that app, and when you finally put something on, your attention is divided between the big screen and the Little Screen of Death. Each feeding into each other and carving out pieces of our souls and our intellects. (Note to self; Finish playing Baldur’s Gate 3 —the Mind Flayers are relevant to this)