All Hail the New Flesh

Demi Moore is outraged to discover that she is being replaced by a younger and lovelier version of herself named Sue .

The film opens by introducing us to physically fading but still fabulously fit former movie star Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) The process is harrowingly complex and messy.

Elisabeth and Sue are united in their worship of youth and their contempt for the old, the weak, and the superannuated.

Sue steals more of the life-sustaining fluid from the host's body so she can enjoy a night with the boy-toy she’s picked up at a bar.

Sue 's contempt, on the other hand, is the callous condescension of youth toward age, coupled with a 20-year-old 's inability to forgo instant gratification.

The Substance confronts us with the tension of generational resentment: the daughter flowering into the ripeness of her beauty just as the mother’s is starting to wane.

The biological purpose of sexual attraction is the reproduction of the species.

Men do not instinctively find young women more alluring than middle-aged women because they've been brainwashed to respond that way by a misogynistic patriarchy.