‘The Substance’ Ending Explained: What That Disgusting, Bloody Finale Means

The Substance, which began streaming on Mubi today, is not a subtle movie. But it is a loud, gross, and outrageous commentary on ageism and misogyny, wrapped up in a disgusting body horror package.  It’s no wonder the movie has horror fans buzzing.

Written and directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, this horror film first premiered at Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews, where it also won the Palme d’Or for Best Screenplay. Demi Moore stars as a fictional, aging Hollywood star named Elisabeth Sparkle, who uses an experimental black market drug to create a younger, hotter clone of herself, played by Margaret Qualley.

If you didn’t get a chance to watch this movie in theaters, now is your chance to sign up for a Mubi 7-day free trial and watch the movie at home. Just know that this movie is not for the faint of heart—or the weak of stomach.

The Substance has arguably the wildest, grossest ending of any movie in 2024. If you need help processing, Decider is here to help. Read on for an analysis of The Substance plot summary and The Substance ending explained.

The Substance plot summary:

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an aging Hollywood movie star clinging to her last job: The host of an ’80s style aerobics exercise show. On her 50th birthday, she’s frankly informed by the insidious, sexist network executive (Dennis Quaid) that she’ll be replaced by a younger actress. Elisabeth decides to try an experimental, black-market drug known as The Substance, which claims it will create “a younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself.

How does it work? The instructions explain that Elisabeth must first inject herself with the single-use activator serum. This creates a clone that crawls out of Elisabeth’s body, who goes by the name Sue (played by Margaret Qualley). The self (Moore) and other self (Qualley) must trade off lives every seven days. During the seven days that one body is not active, it will be hooked up to a bag of food—just enough for seven days. The other self must also take daily “stabilizer fluid” injections, extracted from the original body.

Sue is swiftly hired as Elisabeth’s replacement, and skyrockets to fame. In fact, she’s doing so well and having such a great time, that she decides to outstay her seven-day welcome. In order to do this, she takes more stabilizer fluid from Elisabeth’s coma-like body. When Elisabeth wakes up for her turn the next morning, she sees that one of her fingers has aged rapidly. Distressed, she calls the drug company. They tell her that if Sue stays awake for more than seven days at a time, she will steal from Elisabeth’s life force, thus forcing her to age rapidly. But when she’s asked if she wants to quit the Substance, Elisabeth says no.

Angry at Sue and jealous of her success, Elisabeth gorges herself on food and trashes their apartment. Distressed that Elisabeth is making her fat—and also convinced that she does a better job living, anyhow—Sue decides to stay in control indefinitely. She’s gearing up to host a big, televised live New Year’s Eve show. But the night before the show, Sue is unable to access the stabilizer fluid in time. Elisabeth finally wakes up again—now a bald, deformed, haggard old woman, that looks more like a corpse than human.

Elisabeth calls the Substance company and tells them she wants to stop. She acquires a drug that will terminate Sue permanently. She begins to inject Sue, but can’t bring herself to finish the job. With the balance disrupted, Sue wakes up. For the first time, the two women face each other, both awake. Naturally, they fight! Sue wins the fight, and brutally beats Elisabeth to death.

Sue tries to go to work for the New Year’s Eve show, but without Elisabeth or the stabilizer fluid, she is quickly deteriorating. When her teeth begin to fall out, she rushes home and finds leftover activator fluid from her original creation. She injects herself, hoping to create yet another prettier, better version of herself. Instead, she creates a full-blown monster, which the movie dubs “Monstro Elisasue.”

The Substance ending explained:

Monstro Elisasue is a grotesque, body horror creature made up of a mishmash of body parts from Elisabeth and Sue, reminiscent of The Elephant Man. She’s objectively horrifying, but she nevertheless puts on a pretty dress, make-up, and jewelry to get ready for the New Year’s Eve show. Eventually, Monstro Elisasue gives up and tapes an old Elisabeth Sparkle poster—which has been hanging in her house this whole time—over her monstrous face.

Because this is a movie that is completely detached from reality, this disguise fools the TV crew, and Monstro Elisasue is able to get on stage for her big New Year’s Eve show. Her walk-on music is the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey. But then her mask falls off. She spits out a disgusting, bloodied, fleshy breast. Suddenly, the parts of Sue that audiences wanted to consume—Sue’s boobs—are now horrifying.

The live audience is disgusted and terrified. They scream and terror and call her a monster. Again, this echoes the scene in David Lynch’s 1980 film, The Elephant Man, in which a scared mob chase John Hurt’s character, a man born with a severely deformed face.

The audience panics and attacks Monstro Elisasue. One patron manages to decapitate her, but a new head reforms, and she coats the audience in blood. Just in case this was too subtle for you, director Coralie Fargeat includes a soundbite from earlier in the film, when a producer commented on a woman’s body saying, “Too bad her boobs aren’t on her face, instead of that nose,” and another where Dennis Quaid proclaims that “pretty girls should always smile.”

At the very end of the movie, Monstro Elisasue collapses on the sidewalk outside the theater and her body disintegrates. A small, sentient blob that still resembles Elisabeth’s face manages to crawl down the sidewalk. She shuffles over to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The movie opened with a time-lapse of the star, to show Elisabeth Sparkle’s once-promising career, and the way she faded into obscurity. Now, Monstro Elisasue rests on her star and looks up at the night sky. (There are stars there, too!) She imagines a crowd cheering for her, Elisabeth Sparkle, and admirers telling her they love her. She smiles, and disintegrates into a puddle of blood.

The next morning, a street cleaner wipes the blood away. And just like that, Elisabeth Sparkle is gone and forgotten. With that, the movie ends.

The Substance ending meaning:

Phew! That one was a doozy, right? Don’t forget that this movie exists in a strange, nebulous universe where it’s kind of always the ’80s, but also there are smartphones and Amazon lockers. Also, it snows in Los Angeles. In other words, this is not a film that is grounded in reality. Nothing is meant to be taken too literally. This is all a twisted metaphor for the way society objectifies women for their bodies; the way people want to consume women for their own pleasure. This blood represents the rage that’s pent-up inside Monstro Elisasue as a result of all this, unfair, sexist objectification. The public wanted to consume Elisabeth’s/Sue’s body when she was beautiful. Now they finally can!

Also? It’s metal as hell.