It’s generally cause for distress when your enchanted pumpkin carriage or lovable Mogwai has overextended forbidden activities beyond midnight. But age-old adages about the exact time when perceived Hollywood beauty expires go into audacious overtime in the contemporary satirical body horror film The Substance (B), written, directed and co-edited with glorious gore and gusto by Coralie Fargeat. A stunning Demi Moore lunges into a memorable central performance as a driven 50-year-old TV aerobics superstar facing career decline and experimenting with a black market medical regimen billed as a fountain of youth. Margaret Qualley occupies a symbiotic doppelgänger role, an object of fantasy and fury in delicate balance with the leading lady. Both actresses are incredible in their mirror-image parts on various ends of the glamor spectrum, and it’s clear from how game they are in service to Fargeat’s vision that they are pursuing their roles with zero vanity. There are jaw-dropping sequences of blood and bombast, but the film’s watershed moment involves Moore’s character at the looking-glass, hesitating in numerous bittersweet ways as she prepares for a date because she doesn’t feel pretty. Benjamin Kracun’s candy-colored cinematography and Raffertie’s explosive score complement the outstanding 29-member makeup department and Emmanuelle Youchnovski’s standout costumes. Dennis Quaid and other male characters in the film are written quite broadly, which works well as parody but generates a distancing effect to interactions. Frequent allegory paints with a thick brush over a few inconvenient plot points. The overall grotesquerie will please ardent Fangoria Magazine readers but could turn away other viewers who would savor the fresh commentary. With her singularity of vision and hypnotic, horrific stylings, Fargeat invites comparisons to Kubrick, Cronenberg and De Palma but ironically could have nipped and tucked a few impulses causing the film to wear out its welcome long after making its point. This film itself is far from a fading star!