The Substance
Once again transmogrifying old-school exploitation into her own feminist styling of New French Extremity, Coralie Fargeat trades in the empowered bloodletting of 2018’s Revenge for body horror. The Substance is one-note, obscene, and about as subtle as a sledgehammer — and it also happens to be one of the best movies of the year.
TIFF 2024 FILM REVIEW
A Year in Film 2023
2023: A tumultuous, but also exciting year for cinema that saw the bottoms fall out of once unstoppable franchises and the rise of new and old masters. Characterized by surprise blockbusters, stinging excavations of the human condition, and a few bold oddities, last year was a cornucopia of great film. Let's take one last ride through the movies of 2023.
Digging up turpitude from the deep recesses of dark web opportunism, Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms is a serial killer thriller that finds power in its restraint and shocking prescience: an evil — yet vital — film to understand the stranglehold of postmodern, screen-abetted detachment. Juliette Gariépy’s chilling performance is a roundhouse kick to the teeth to dismantle our culture of macabre obsession, parasocial madness, and growing numbness. Minor spoilers ahead…