The vitals:
7:00 ~ Doors
7:30 ~ THE SUBSTANCE

After seeing The Substance in theaters opening weekend, I left with two thoughts: 1. This was the best cinema experience I’ve had in years–the audience was gleefully squirming and squealing together. 2. The only genre that can accurately tell women's stories is body horror. 

Equal parts social critique and high camp, Coralie Fargeat’s film launched a thousand memes while shining a spotlight on how women have been trained to fear aging more than anything, even death. As someone who’s injected literal poison into her face, I saw myself everywhere in this film: panicking in the mirror before a big night, examining every inch of women’s bodies through a grotesquely-pornographic-yet-surgically-unhorny lens, and even yelling at the TV while trying to cook French food. 

I’m a Demi Moore stan and Margaret Qualley hater, but this movie knew how to make the most of these actresses. I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out Dennis Quaid eating 4.5 lbs of shrimp for that scene. The Substance is a movie out of time, both old-fashioned and futuristic, filling every inch of the screen, and is absolutely unrelenting right through the final moments. Somehow, I still can’t get enough.

—Cindy Popp

SEE YOU AT THE MOVIES
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