Legendary horror director John Carpenter has said he disliked “everything” about the 2024 genre hit The Substance.
The body horror film, directed by Coralie Fargeat and starring Demi Moore as a fading celebrity who uses a black market drug to create a younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley), became a breakout hit last year, even being nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
A hit with critics, it was also a major box office success, bringing in approximately $80million from a $18million budget, but none of this has been enough to impress Carpenter, the auteur behind Halloween, The Thing and Escape From New York.
During an appearance at a fan expo in Philadelphia last week, the director was asked what he thought of The Substance. He responded by asking the questioner what they thought, and when they confirmed they “loved it”, Carpenter replied: “Well, I didn’t.”
The questioner went on to ask him what he didn’t appreciate about it. “What did I like about it?” he said. “Zero. What didn’t I like? Everything.”
Watch the exchange here:
Carpenter on The Substance pic.twitter.com/ERXhRnoEC2
— Matt Strohl (@strohltopia) October 26, 2025
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The Substance was hailed for its satire of the entertainment industry and the unrealistic, misogynistic stigmas that surround female bodies and aging, and it was created by French filmmaker Fargeat, who was previously best known for the 2017 film Revenge.
Fargeat has also expressed her admiration for Carpenter in the past, hailing his film The Thing as having “such a strong influence on me” in an interview with Heavy, and also telling Inverse that Carpenter and David Cronenberg are “those filmmakers that I love and admire”.
In addition to its Best Picture nomination, Moore was also nominated for Best Actress for The Substance, and was seen by some as the favourite, although she ultimately lost to Mikey Madison for Anora. Despite this, Moore later said she “knew” she wasn’t going to win and insisted that she “didn’t feel gutted”.
NME awarded The Substance the full five stars, writing: “Her film is slightly too long, but Fargeat really cranks up the freakiness in the final act. With help from some memorably grotesque prosthetics, she offers a hellish vision of what women will do to themselves in pursuit of men’s idea of perfection. Filled with visual nods to iconic movies including Carrie and Showgirls, The Substance is that rare thing: a future cult classic that also packs a real punch now.”
As for Carpenter, he said earlier this year that he had agreed to work on the score for Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s new horror film. Carpenter’s composition on projects such as Halloween and The Fog is legendary, with those scores among the first to incorporate electronic music into mainstream cinema.
Another popular film that Carpenter declared he did not like was 2023’s Barbie. “I can’t believe I watched Barbie,” he said. “It’s just not my generation,” he added, claiming that it went “right over my head”.
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