The Substance exposes brilliantly the tortures women put themselves and their bodies through. It is bleakly true, but there’s a bigger, and happier, truth for all women.

The much-hyped body horror The Substance won Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival, collected a string of five-star reviews (including by our very own Tim Robey) and has tipped Demi Moore for an Oscar.

Demi Moore leads a critically acclaimed cast in stomach churning new horror film The Substance - and film fans in the UK have been so disturbed by scenes they've had to quit screenings

One of the latest horror films to land in cinemas is so ‘graphic’ viewers have been walking out before it even finishes. Starring Demi Moore, the film premiered on 20 September and has pretty simply been described as absolutely ‘f**ked’.

Demi Moore is trying to find the beauty in her new horror movie, The Substance. In the critically acclaimed project, Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress fired from her TV fitness show for being too old.

The female body is a horror movie waiting to happen. From puberty and the grisly onset of menstruation, in pictures such as Brian De Palma’s Carrie and John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, to pregnancy and childbirth — Rosemary’s Baby is the obvious example — women have provided a rich seam of inspiration for genre film-makers over the past half century.

The Substance, starring Demi Moore, is a bright and showy body horror film about aging and the hypersexualization of the female body. But it doesn’t go much further than illustrating at great length that there are nasty cultural attitudes toward older women.

Body horror is particularly appealing to creators who would have previously found it difficult to make a living in the world of commercial film-making.