Horror at the Oscars: On "The Substance" and Crafting Your Own Nightmare

When we think of the Oscars, we don't immediately think of horror movies. But it happens. This year, we've got The Substance with five nominations and Nosferatu with four. Alien: Romulus can claim one nomination. Academy-lauded horror films of the past include The Sixth Sense, Get Out, Misery, The Exorcist, and Best Picture-winning The Silence of the Lambs, which many label a horror film—although I'm not sure I agree.

I'd also make a case for Parasite (Winner, Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, 2020) being considered a "slow burn" horror story. Consider three big structural elements native to the genre:

• A terrifying reveal late in the film (the man trapped in the basement).
• A horrific incident of violence (the party).
• A dark coda with dramatic irony (the new guy in the basement).

Get Out is the best example of "elevated" horror success in the past decade, and Jordan Peele deservedly took home the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2018. There's a lot to say about the story construction of Get Out (which I get into in the new edition of my book), but let’s focus on one of 2024’s breakout films—The Substance—in a year packed with breakout horror films.

The Substance made its mark not just with its outrageous body horror moments (and they are outrageous!), but I think it primarily got noticed—and possibly even greenlit—due to its idea, which was simultaneously classic, relatable, and relevant. A logline: A desperate actress turns to a mysterious, regimented procedure that creates a younger version of herself, but when she tries to game the system, she’s met with increasingly disastrous consequences and finds herself at war with her starlet alter-ego. It’s a modern, satirical take on the doppelgänger myth meets Hollywood. And it’s a great concept.

For the record, I’m not even talking about execution. Honestly, I thought there were problems with the screenplay and the film, and it ultimately didn’t work for me. However, it definitely held my attention the entire time, and it will haunt my psyche until my eventual death (objective achieved?). I’m just pointing out the inherent “buzzworthiness” of Coralie Fargeat’s idea. For storytellers looking to bring attention to their work amidst a glut of competing content, this seems like half the battle these days.

The longer I spend in this business, the more I come to the conclusion that THE IDEA MUST ALWAYS COME FIRST—both in the writing and marketing of your original story. If your concept doesn't grab attention, you're dead in the water. A decision-maker needs to see potential for a piece of business. They need to hear an elevator pitch or read a logline and think, I can sell that. Even if a recommendation is coming from their best friend, a busy professional doesn’t have time to read a script “just for fun.” They’re still going to evaluate whether it sounds like it could help advance their career before they fire up that PDF.

Stating the obvious, to even get to the point where a reader is blown away by your writing, they have to first agree to take the time to read the script. But how do they make that decision? By loving your concept, which must be expressed well in a logline. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s inescapable – even the greatest writers need to begin with a great concept if they’re even going to get up to the plate.

Concept creation is too important to leave up to the whimsy of your muse. As with writing, practice makes perfect. The more ideas you develop, the more likely you are to eventually pluck a diamond from the rough. That said, you won’t really know if you’ve got a winner without running it by others. You have to field test a concept and gauge reactions to determine its strength.

The more I delve into the horror genre, I find that the best ideas begin with a primal fear. A writer spins a new riff on a universal feeling of dread that is felt by people all over the world. In the case of The Substance, the primal fear is aging—specifically, a woman’s fear of losing everything when the patriarchy deems her no longer attractive or relevant. (There must be something to this fear—I seem to remember a small film from a few years ago that riffed on it and went on to become the biggest hit in Warner Bros. history.) It’s not that men can’t relate to or enjoy the premise, but it seems clear to me that the target audience for The Substance was primarily women from the get-go. And it’s very smart to have a well-defined target audience in mind for your movie, TV series, book, comic book, or even social media content. If someone asks you, "Who is this for?" your answer can’t be “everyone.” There’s no way to market to “everyone.”

There is a way to generate your own idea for a buzzworthy genre story. I’ve developed an effective, creative tool for concept creation that won’t take long to learn. It’s similar to my Story Maps method that I’ve coached writers to use for over two decades, but with a particular focus on Horror and Thriller stories. I’ll be presenting it in my next online class, where writers will use it to build their own high-concept narratives that will blow away the reader.

Let’s continue to build the story, using The Substance as our primary example. Once you have your primal fear, this should inform the central theme, but it doesn’t have to be a direct offshoot. For example, in Get Out, the primal fear is a return to slavery, but the theme focuses on second chances. In The Substance, I’d say the theme is more closely related to that primal fear of being put out to pasture, but it goes deeper and focuses in on our protagonist’s action, which is an attempt to fight nature and find a magical cure for aging. But this is a fool’s errand, thus the theme The desperate attempt to fight aging is a path to destruction. It’s also an allegory for addiction, eating disorders, diet culture, Hollywood ideals, hubris, etc. It occurs to me that the story is both woman vs. nature AND woman vs. society, offering a complexity of concept that has allowed it to rise above being seen as just another schlocky special effects gross-fest and has garnered it so many awards accolades (even though it is also a schlocky special effects gross-fest, pure bliss for those of you who like those sorts of things).

So, you've got your:

• Primal Fear: Dismissal due to aging.
• Theme: It’s a fool’s errand to try to be younger.
• Archetype: The doppelgänger.
• Story Template: The attempt to fight nature and play God (shades of Frankenstein).
• Subgenre: Body horror.
• World: Hollywood/fitness industry.
• Protagonist’s Goal: To become a beloved star again.
• Achilles Heel: She needs to look perfect in public.
• Major Misstep: She breaks the rules of the procedure.
• Predicament: Her body keeps decaying.
• Big Climax: The New Year’s Eve show.

Compiling this list after the fact may make it look easy—it’s not. Coming up with it from scratch is the real challenge. As with any creative project, sitting down, grabbing that blob of clay, and starting to mold it is often the toughest part. But when it comes to writing these kinds of tales, there is a clear-cut process you can go through in a specific order—one I’ve determined to be the most efficient. I believe it can help you construct both a great concept and a great story.

But Wait... What’s missing? What else do you need? What’s left? Well, if we’re talking about The Substance...

Butts.

Lots of butts.