Horror movies

The last time I remember really noticing Demi Moore in a movie was in Margin Call. The film was an excellent (and unfortunately still timely) portrait of the type of Wall Street backbiting and greed that precipitated the 2007 housing collapse. It’s also an ensemble where Moore stands out while still being positioned in support of male co-stars like Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey, one of whom scapegoats Moore’s character in her biggest scene. Before that film, it was The Joneses and Mr. Brooks, where Moore twice played “the wife,” which often is Hollywood code for the most underwritten character in a movie.

I bring this up because not one of these pictures was released in the last 10 years. Two of them not even in the past 15. It’s a remarkably depressing thing, especially when one remembers Demi Moore was among the biggest stars of the ‘90s. And she radiates still, ferociously so, when given the chance. Well, Coralie Fargeat just provided her a great one in The Substance, the most original, and pitiless, horror movie I’ve seen this year...