Shadow Selves
Spoiler alert: this post will talk about plot points and themes of The Substance, Babygirl and Companion. I assume readers have either watched these films or are OK with vague references to them, as I will not be going into great detail about the plots but will also be pulling out random references from beginning to end. At first, I thought that The Substance (2024), a sci-fi/horror movie starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, would be merely supplemental to my appreciation of an erotic thriller with similar themes of aging and worth that I watched back in January and loved immediately: Babygirl (also 2024). A relative newcomer to the horror & thriller genres, I've found that good films in these categories stick with you in a trauma-bonding kind of way, where you walk away feeling like you just went to a really exhausting but cathartic therapy session that you don't quite know what to make of. Both of these films got at something really deep for me and continued to perc...