The Guardian view on female-led horror: time for a new formula | Editorial

Bloodied women’s bodies are once more to the fore in a seasonal crop of hagsploitation films

This Halloween, it seems, is all about the “hag”. Overshadowing the axe-wielding clown in Terrifier 3, a dark-web serial killer in Red Rooms and an increasingly sinister Hugh Grant in Heretic is one of the scariest creatures in the Hollywood imagination: a fiftysomething woman.

The Substance, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, won the prize for best screenplay at Cannes this year, but has divided critics and audiences. Streaming from 31 October, the film stars Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading star who succumbs to the lure of “the substance” – a yellow syringe that promises a return to her younger, more beautiful self. After she writhes in agony, her spine splits open and a younger, entirely different woman emerges.

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