This year, a multitude of top-rated films have come out, ranging from “Dune: Part Two” to “Anora,” and several scary movies have taken the lead. The 2024 horror movie insights chosen in this article encapsulate diverse social adversities.
“I Saw The TV Glow” slams into the psychological horror genre as an unforgettable piece of the transgender experience, a strong queer representation. “The Substance” strives as a grotesque and gruesome satire on the commodities of beauty. Overall, the two movies covered in this article are something to consider enjoying this week for Halloween.
As October winds down, here are two movies worth considering for the last days of the Halloween season.
I Saw The TV Glow
The binary bends of “I Saw The TV Glow” depicts the timeless horror of never discovering one’s identity, with the question “What if?” serving as the overarching fear of the film. The constant use of pink and blue blending into purples delves seamlessly into the conversation of sexuality and gender, all tied together in under two hours.
The film starts with two teens at about middle school age: Owen and Maddy. Their entire friendship revolved around a show, “The Pink Opaque.” It’s a grungy late-night mystery about two teenage girls fighting demons sent after them, seeking to evade the villainous Mr. Melancholy. The overall aesthetics and style are reminiscent of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.”
At first, the show feels representative of escapism. The dreamy atmosphere drew Owen in from mere commercials, and Maddy’s apparent obsession is a focal point to avoid the violence in her home. But Owen doesn’t get to watch the show for himself. A strict curfew prevents him from engaging. Thus, his friendship with Maddy blooms as they watch it secretly in her basement.
When Owen finally gets the courage to ask to stay up and watch “The Pink Opaque,” it hits that this is far more than a horror film with elements of obsession or wishful thinking. His father retorts, his only line in the movie, “Isn’t that a girl’s show?”
There is no doubt that the movie wanted to immerse the audience into the minds of both characters. The young protagonists are accompanied by the cheerful, static music of their era.
By the time they’re in high school, there’s more of a daunting preliminary dread. The music slows, and Maddy continues to live through the abuse she faces–her stepfather, who is never shown, and her ex-friend publicly ostracized her for being a lesbian–until she can’t anymore. The season finale airs, and she is determined to evade the feeling of being an outcast, unlike Owen.
The persistent nature of Owen defies his parents controlling attitudes by receiving the tapes of “The Pink Opaque,” engaging in more queer absolutes with Maddy as his outlet. But this halts once he realizes how serious Maddy is about leaving. He settles with it and lives in discomfort. Owen is given two opportunities to live as who he is but never takes it.
Majorly, there is no need for a right or wrong in this movie, but rather to illuminate the inherent horrors of someone suffering from dysphoria, especially from within the home. Owen remains relentlessly terrified of who he is. The first time he sees the TV glow, it nearly eats him alive. The TV isn’t just a window to his fascination with stepping out of the gender binary but a mirror reflection of who Owen has been the whole time. Hence, why does the show seem “corny” and “worse” than how he remembers later in life? Owen’s exploration of identity was unserious and childish in his mind.
Every queer person should watch “I Saw The TV Glow.” It has landed as a monumental piece of LGBTQ+ media, even more so within the horror genre, where queerness has consistently overlapped with the realm of terror (for better or for worse, but this time it is way better).
The Substance
“The Substance” is a strange combination of “Antiviral” meets “Jennifer’s Body” meets “The Thing.” Instead of a depleting teenage girl dependent on the flesh of boys, Demi Moore shows the path of stepping down for the new age of beauty or, rather, towards the injection of youth–botox. Displayed throughout three chapters of the film, “The Substance” is a two-and-a-half-hour slip into insanity. The themes reiterate the demeaning attitudes toward aging and beauty, with frequent nods to classic sci-fi horror like “The Fly”
Following the famous actor Elisabeth Sparkle, her rising and falling career is shown through the installment of her Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and she is subsequently fired for being too “old,” where Dennis Quaid plays her supervisor in the film Harvey.
An obvious nod towards the upheld patriarchal values within fame, Harvey is a relentlessly objectifying, degrading boss who seeks out the young, desirable women of the modern era. In contrast, Elisabeth Sparkle is reminiscent of the 80s; her jazzercise TV show is already in the works for a revamp as the movie begins.
Demoted on her 50th birthday, Elisabeth is given a solution to this dilemma by a male nurse after a car crash. A black market branded drug named The Substance,” where you go through a strange form of mitosis for a “better, more beautiful version of yourself,” according to the ones promoting this drug.
The foreshadowing of this is blatant at the beginning, opening with the process of working on an egg embryo, where Elisabeth remains this embryonic symbol consistently wearing a bright, yolk yellow coat as herself. After taking the substance, a new version of Elisabeth emerges after a gory rebirth scene.
Presumably, the uneasy aspect of this film is the focus on the spine, veins, and frequent piercing of the skin with needles. The origins of the drug and how this male nurse came to know Elisabeth’s internal struggles remain unknown as the audience is thrown into a cyclical descent of madness.
Each week, Elisabeth lives as Sue to take back her place on television. Her self-obsession is blatant, beginning with a portrait of her golden years as Elisabeth, who is staring back at Sue’s billboard, but her self-hatred is just as consuming. Throughout the film, Elisabeth is reminded that Sue is not a separate entity; they are the same person. She remains unable to view both of them as one.
They share the same habits: overdrinking, seeking male validation through her beauty, and the need for fame. There is nothing inherently different besides the physical appearance.
Fitting the societal Hollywood mold pressures women to remain attractive. By the film’s climax, Elisabeth admits to herself, “You are the only loveable part of me,” applying this not to Sue but to her youth. Yet, this devolves into a face-to-face confrontation.
Still, Sue is determined to exaggerate this life, which leads to an unhinged, borderline insane ending that has breached the TV screens thus far; they may even take the cake over the “Terrifier” franchise.
Overall, the ending was theatrical and takes place as the most gruesome ending one could wait for. The pacing is slow but worthwhile. It is truly an easy way to scare any person away from plastic surgery. For some celebrities, it is a never-ending cycle of body dysmorphia. The deterioration is literal in the film, in both her mental and physical states.
