THE SUBSTANCE

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens with a shot of an egg yolk being injected with a mysterious green fluid. The yolk then splits apart and creates an identical copy. Then it cuts to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, focusing on the star of celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore). Time is shown as fans flock around the star, to later on when people start to view Elisabeth as more of an afterthought.

Elisabeth hosts a TV aerobics show called “Sparkle It Up”. When she can’t use the women’s room, she enters the men’s room and hides when she hears someone coming. Elisabeth overhears the network’s president, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), talking about wanting to get rid of Elisabeth now that she has hit 50 years of age. She later has lunch with Harvey (who grossly stuffs his face with shrimp), who lets her go.

While driving home, Elisabeth becomes alarmed at seeing her billboard being taken down, causing her to get distracted and get into a serious car accident. At the doctor’s office, she is told by the nurse (Robin Greer) that she is a “perfect candidate” after doing a check-up on her, then slips a flash drive into her jacket pocket. On her way out, Elisabeth is met by a man named Fred, who remembers her all the way back from high school. He tells her she is still the most beautiful woman in the world, and he gives her his number, despite him clearly coming on too strong and eager.

Back at home, Elisabeth watches the contents of the flash drive, which advertises something called “The Substance”. A voice (Yann Bean) explains that The Substance provides the user with the experience as living as a younger and “better” version of themselves, switching between the young and old bodies every seven days without exception. Elisabeth initially turns down the idea of committing to this, but after feeling lonely and longing for her glory days, she calls the number and is simply given an address and is told to give hers.

Elisabeth receives an ID card and goes to the address, which is down a shady alley in a secret building. She finds a deposit box with her number and opens it to find The Substance inside. She returns home and injects herself with the green fluid from earlier. After a while, Elisabeth falls to the floor in pain, while a giant slit opens up in her back. A younger, beautiful woman (Margaret Qualley) emerges from Elisabeth’s back. She sews up the wound and uses a stabilizer fluid on herself and the Elisabeth body to keep her body balanced.

The young woman starts to go by “Sue” and quickly earns a spot at Elisabeth’s old network after winning Harvey over. Sue enjoys the newfound attention she is getting and lives her first week with high energy. When she returns to being Elisabeth, her life remains unremarkable and dull, with her only major activity being going back to the network to collect the rest of her belongings from Harvey.

When she returns to being Sue, she has her new fitness show picked up full time, with Harvey agreeing to work around her unusual schedule. Sue then builds a separate room in the bathroom to hide Elisabeth’s body while she is unconscious. The noise causes an irate neighbor to complain, only for him to back down and try to unsuccessfully hit on Sue when he sees that she is a gorgeous young woman and not Elisabeth.

Sue goes out for the night just hours before she needs to switch. She brings home a guy named Troy (Oscar Lesage) to hook up with, but she starts to get a nosebleed because her time has run out. Wanting just a little more time, Sue recycles a stabilizer tube and extracts more fluid from Elisabeth’s body so she can spend the night with Troy.

When Elisabeth wakes up, she finds that the extra time spent as Sue has caused her right hand to look older and sickly. She calls the number for The Substance, only to be told that the effects are irreversible and that she needs to respect the balance, and also to not view Sue as a separate person when Sue is still Elisabeth. After getting her refill kit, she goes to a diner where she sees an old man (Christian Erickson) with a similar birthmark on his arm as the nurse who recommended The Substance to her. He frightens her when he tells her about the negative effects that the younger self is leaving, asking her if Sue has started “eating away at her” yet. Elisabeth runs out panicked and is yelled at by Troy, who is picking up his motorcycle from her building.

Elisabeth finds Fred’s number and decides to take him up on his offer to go to dinner. He excitedly accepts and makes a reservation. When Elisabeth is set to head out the door after getting ready, she gets distracted by seeing the billboard for Sue’s show staring at her outside her window. Elisabeth keeps going to the bathroom and removes or reapplies makeup until she just becomes so bitter and frustrated that she bails on the date without contacting Fred again.

During a taping of Sue’s show, she does a bad take because she felt something bulging against her backside. Elisabeth covers herself up and walks out of the room as they do a playback to avoid seeing what she hopes isn’t real. She goes to the bathroom and pushes the lump up her leg and out of her belly button, which turns out to be a whole chicken leg. Sue also calls the number to complain about Elisabeth’s binge drinking and eating habits while Sue barely has time to actually enjoy her life.

Sue later goes to the studio to find that the taping for her show has been canceled. When she goes to see Harvey, he tells her that she has become so popular that they want her to host a New Year’s Eve special. Sue accepts and then takes more time away from Elisabeth than necessary. When she does go back to Elisabeth’s body, she has become even older and more decrepit-looking, with her legs barely able to move. Elisabeth starts to keep herself busy by using a French cookbook that Harvey got her as a condescending gift, all while growing to hate Sue as she watches her on a talk show, mockingly talking about Elisabeth’s old show.

In retaliation for Elisabeth’s disgusting habits, Sue ends up spending three months extracting fluid from Elisabeth, which starts to look like an infected sore. When she tries to use it one more time, the fluid comes out looking necrotic. She calls the number, and the voice tells her that she has reached the end of her allotted usage time for her young body, and the stabilizing fluid will reset when she goes back to Elisabeth’s body. Sue sees no other option but to do that, and when she returns to Elisabeth’s body, she has become a grotesque, hunchbacked abomination.

Elisabeth decides to terminate The Substance, which will not reverse her affects but will let her continue to live the rest of her life as she is. She gets a black fluid and starts to inject Sue in the chest with it, but she stops short of using the entire syringe and pulls out. Sue wakes up and finds herself face-to-face with Elisabeth. Sue viciously attacks her until she smashes Elisabeth’s face repeatedly against a mirror before beating her to death.

Sue then goes to the network to get ready for the New Year’s Eve special. Unfortunately, her body starts to literally fall apart, with three of her front teeth falling out, her fingernails coming off, and her left ear sliding off. Sue runs back home desperate to fix things, then finds the vial of the activator fluid which was only designed for one-time usage. Thinking it will create another young body, it instead gives birth to an utterly disgusting creature called “Monstro Elisasue”, which has multiple limps, teeth, breasts, and Elisabeth’s gasping face on the back of it.

Monstro goes back to the network with Elisabeth’s face from a poster taped to it and fitting into Sue’s dress. As Monstro approaches the stage, the face falls off and reveals its hideous visage to the audience, even some children. Harvey attacks Monstro and blows its head off with a mic stand, but the head regenerates. Its arm falls off and sprays the audience in a fountain of gore, covering the entire room in nothing but red goo.

Monstro manages to leave the studio until it collapses and splatters into nothing. Emerging from it is a fleshy mass with Elisabeth’s original face attached. She crawls towards her Walk of Fame star, looking up with joy and imagining sparkles raining down on her. Elisabeth smiles one last time before she dissolves into a puddle of goo. In the morning, a floor scrubber washes away the puddle, leaving no trace of Elisabeth behind.

Elisabeth Sparkle was once a beloved celebrity, only to fall into obscurity as she hits 50. After she is let go from her show, she learns about a mysterious project called "The Substance", which allows the users to live as younger, more beautiful versions of themselves while switching between bodies every other week. The younger version of Elisabeth, Sue, quickly becomes famous and replaces Elisabeth on her show, while Elisabeth continues to live alone and bitter.

When Sue uses her younger body for longer than she needs to, Elisabeth's body starts to get older and more decayed. Sue eventually starts to abuse this and turns Elisabeth's body into a hideous old hunchbacked crone after more than three months. When Elisabeth decides to terminate Sue, she stops short of completing the task and has her old body killed by Sue.

Sue is set to perform at a New Year's Eve special at the network, but her body without Elisabeth begins to literally fall apart. Desperate, she uses the activator fluid for The Substance once again (which was designed to only be used once), causing her to become a grotesque hybrid creature called "Monstro Elisasue". The creature goes to the network and terrifies everyone before its arm comes off and sprays the entire room and audience with blood.

Monstro walks into the streets until it collapses and splatters all over the place. What remains is Elisabeth's original face crawling to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She feels happiness one last time before she melts into a puddle of goo, which is then washed away for good the next morning.