The premise sounded familiar, sure, but the movies it evokes are all enduring classics of the horror genre: John Frankenheimer's, David Cronenberg's The Fly, John Carpenter's The Thing.
In the case of The Substance, though, the object of horror is simply a woman who has reached the shriek-inducing age of 50-a feminist twist that struck me as original and witty, not to mention long overdue.
Even the strongest-stomached and most feminist of viewers could be excused for muttering, We get it already.
I'm disappointed to report that I found The Substance lacking in both departments: the oh-no-they-didn't gross-out quotient and the intellectual heft.
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