Hailed as one of the most grotesque films in recent times, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance has made waves with its striking visuals and gruesome depictions of the female body.
Fargeat’s insistence on practical effects over VFX meant that Demi Moore, who has scored her first Oscar nomination for her performance in the film, endured hours of prosthetic enhancements.
The film follows Moore’s character, Elizabeth Sparkle, a has-been actor desperately clinging on to relevance by taking a mysterious substance to retain her youth.
Pierre Olivier Persin, the lead special effects and make-up designer, who has also been Oscar nominated for Best Make-Up and Hairstyling, oversaw a team of 15 people across a gruelling 11-month process to implement Fargeat’s vision. The result were scenes that catapulted the film to unprecedented word-of-mouth and award-winning success.
“Demi was like the best friend you can have from a professional make-up artist’s point of view,” Persin tells The Independent of working with the movie star.
“Her make-up took an average of four to five hours and she could be up in the chair for up to six or seven. But she was a consummate professional, she wasn’t scrolling on her phone for hours or asking for breaks every 15 minutes like some people do. She had her little dog, a chihuahua, on her lap and that was it.”
Some of the movie’s most memorable moments include Sparkle birthing her younger double, Sue (played by Margaret Qualley), as her skin splits open all the way down her spine. The double then sews up the torso-long gash, and viewers are treated to close-ups of the needle piercing flesh, complete with juicy sound effects.
“We were like kids in a candy store,” says Persin. “I really enjoyed doing the back ripping effect.” He used a mixture of a soft appliance and special silicone for the edges of the wound to achieve its flesh-like appearance, with a special form of the plastic used for the inside lip for the needle to pierce through.
Another unforgettable scene that’s already achieved cult status is the creation of the monster, named Monstro Elisasue. The grotesque creature is an amalgamation of both Moore and Qualley’s characters, the result of taking their obsessions too far.
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Persin’s Elephant Man-inspired designs for the bulbous horror covered in boobs, stray hairs, teeth, and Moore’s screaming face protruding from its back, are what earned him the gig on the film after Fargeat deemed alternatives too “masculine”.
“They’d submitted designs that made her look like a hag. Coralie said: ‘You can tell straight away that a man did these,’” shares Persin.
“The suit was worn by a stunt double, she was a gymnast but it was really difficult for her,” Persin explains. “It wasn’t as heavy as it looks because it had suspenders to hold the various parts, so it was quite hollow actually.
“We used Margaret for the close-up of her eye because Coralie wanted the scene to have a tragic quality to it.”
As for Moore’s face, which is trapped in the flesh of the creature in a permanent scream, Persin says that Coralie had written the visual into the script as a non-negotiable. “She was very clear about that,” he says.
Persin keeps the body of the Monstro in his workshop basement and says that it smells as pungent as it did on set.
“It smells like the set of The Substance – just lots of chemicals and latex. A monstrous smell, actually.”
In a climactic scene that had audiences running for the doors, a fire hose sprays the film’s extras with 20,000 litres of fake blood after Monstro Elisasue’s head explodes on stage.
“That was Coralie’s idea,” says Persin. “When we did the blood rig, it was quite powerful but she said, ‘I want it twice as powerful’.”
The film has been considered groundbreaking as a rare example of a horror breaking through to the mainstream.
”Some days I was unhappy with what I was doing,” says Persin reflecting on the film’s success. With a small budget of $17m (£13m), it went on to gross over $76m (£61m) worldwide, granting Moore her first taste of awards success by the industry, including her first Golden Globe for Best Actress.
“When you love what you’re doing, you don’t think about how many hours you’re working. On The Substance, I’d go back to my car some days and you know, you’re dirty and sticky and whatever,” he says. “You only see the little details and you miss the big picture. So, it’s such a surprise to be nominated, it’s been a blur.”
