Interested to know how one of the best horror films from 2024 was made? A 30 minute making-of featurette has the substance you crave

The Substance is easily one of the best horror films to have been released in 2024, possibly the decade, and now distributor Mubi has released a lengthy behind-the-scenes video.

Definite spoiler warning ahead in this making-of featurette for anyone that hasn’t watched The Substance yet, and probably a content warning for body horror imagery too.

It was the Golden Globes over the weekend, and easily one of the most satisfying wins of the night was Demi Moore’s for her lead performance in last year’s The Substance. While it might have been the only win the film got at the awards ceremony, it was a massive one as it was Moore’s first major awards win in her lengthy and prolific career. Now, riding off of the high of Moore’s win and the four other nominations the film received at the Globes, the film’s distributor Mubi has released a making-of featurette that goes into some depth about how the body horror was made.

The behind the scenes mini-documentary kicks off with writer/ director Coralie Fargeat discussing her intention behind making the film, which very much came from how there’s a lack of representation of women above the age of 50 in films, a point that had become very personal to her as she grew older herself.

Some of the best stuff in there is about all the film’s special effects, which if you’ve seen the film you know they’re pretty gnarly. It was all quite economical considering there’s a lot of shots of bodies being wrecked in some gruesome ways – one of my favourite bits comes in at 9:16 showing one of the fake bodies being manipulated to look like something is trying to burst out from its skin. Good stuff! Well worth a watch for fans of the film, or even just fans of the craft.