Did this terrible 1989 fantasy movie starring Bette Davis accidentally inspire ‘The Substance’?
When Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance was released in 2024, it was hailed as one of the most exciting horror movies of the past decade. It is full of references to previous classic movies, including The Shining, Carrie, The Fly, Vertigo, and Videodrome. One film that probably isn’t referenced but which is eerily similar to it is a 1989 movie starring Bette Davis called Wicked Stepmother.
When Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance was released in 2024, it was hailed as one of the most exciting horror movies of the past decade. It’s full of references to previous classic movies, including The Shining, Carrie, The Fly, Vertigo, and Videodrome. One film that probably isn’t referenced but which is eerily similar to it is a 1989 movie starring Bette Davis called Wicked Stepmother.
Just to quickly provide a refresher on the plot of The Substance, it stars Demi Moore as a once-famous actor named Elisabeth Sparkle. After she is fired from her role as a fitness instructor on a daytime exercise show, she decides to try to revive her status by taking a mysterious substance that creates a separate, youthful version of herself named Sue, played by Margaret Qualley. The catch is that Elisabeth and Sue can only exist in turns and must switch every seven days without fail. Inevitably, Sue begins to enjoy her life as the young starlet of the moment and refuses to respect the balance.
Wicked Stepmother is a terrible movie, so trying to explain the plot is not as easy as it might seem. Bette Davis plays Miranda, an ageing witch who marries a wealthy man and begins to slowly take control of his life. When his daughter and son-in-law, Jenny and Steve, return from vacation, Jenny is suspicious of her new stepmother, while Steve slowly becomes infatuated with her. This is compounded when Miranda’s daughter, Priscilla, comes for a visit. The mother and daughter can only appear in their human forms one at a time and spend the rest of their time in the body of a black cat. Just as happens in The Substance, Priscilla eventually decides that she’s having too much fun to respect the balance and forces her mother to stay in the body of the cat.
It is important to note that the only reason there is a body-sharing situation in the film is because Bette Davis quit the movie partway through production. Director Larry Cohen maintains that she was too ill to continue (she died later that year), but Davis claimed that it was because she simply couldn’t stand him or the movie. Either way, the script was rewritten so that Barbara Carrera could play her younger double, and the plot of The Substance was foreshadowed.
To be clear, I do not think that Coralie Fargeat has heard of Wicked Stepmother, let alone seen it, but there are some pretty striking similarities. At one point, Priscilla is starting to have sex with Steve, only to sprout a giant cat’s tail that sends him fleeing the room. A similar situation happens in The Substance. When Sue refuses to let Elisabeth take over for her allotted seven days, she too is interrupted by her body rebelling against her while having sex with someone. Towards the end of the movie, Priscilla even tries to destroy the cat so that she can stay in her human form forever, just like Sue does with Elisabeth (albeit with buckets more blood).
Both movies also demonstrate the absurd power of the youthful female body. When Priscilla takes over, men begin fawning over her, stopping dead in their tracks and losing all sense of self-respect. Meanwhile, Jenny is sounding the alarm, recognising that something is off.
Ultimately, there is one major difference between these movies. The Substance offers a searing critique of sexism, while Wicked Stepmother is blatantly misogynistic. Throughout the film, Jenny is treated as an irrational, bitter harpy who is the butt of every joke despite being the only character who sees Miranda and Priscilla for who they are. They might have the same basic premise, but the worldview underpinning these films couldn’t be more different.
