The Substance (2024)

Cronenbergian body horror premised on the cultural belief that women "expire" when they get older.

Demi Moore, a 70-year-old who looks like a 40-year-old, is an award-winning-actress-cum-jazzercise-instructor fired by her slimy Hollywood boss, Dennis Quaid, for being too old.

She signs up for an extremely under-defined medical experiment, and gives violent spinal birth to a younger, hotter clone of herself. Only one clone can be awake at a time, and they must switch every seven days.

Old clone starts doubting her place and purpose, while young clone parties and breaks the rules. Young clone's rule breaking kicks old clone into hyper-aging, and old clone descends into a Requiem for a Dream spiral.

The cinematography is particularly good, though they might overdo it on the close-ups. It does suffer from over-explaining itself to the viewer, because presumably we aren't smart enough to follow the extremely obvious metaphors.

Young clone forgets to Just Say No, and creates a multi-headed lumpy space princess clone. It births a boob balloon on stage, and then goes full Bad Taste and everyone is drenched in a sea of blood while the voiceover recalls the movie we just watched for us, in case we forgot the plot.