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The Oscars have historically snubbed horror. Demi Moore's performance in 'The Substance' could change that.
Demi Moore is a frontrunner for the Best Actress Oscar, but her performance in "The Substance" has already made its mark on horror.
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Since the first Oscars in 1929, only eight horror movies have received a coveted Best Picture nomination. That includes this year’s nod for The Substance.
According to the Yahoo Best Picture Leaderboard, it’s not likely that The Substance has the juice to take home the top prize. Only one horror movie has ever done so — The Silence of the Lambs — and that was over three decades ago. But the body horror film starring Demi Moore might still have an impact on the academy.
In The Substance, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress who’s fired from her job hosting a fitness TV show on her 50th birthday. She injects herself with a mysterious substance that offers a better version of herself, going to extreme lengths to regain the adoration her younger self experienced from Hollywood elites.
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Zoran Samardzija, a professor of film and television at Columbia College Chicago, told Yahoo Entertainment that the satirical nature of The Substance might have been what appealed to academy voters in the “tradition of other non-horror” Oscar-nominated movies that criticize show business, like Sunset Boulevard and Mulholland Drive.
“It takes on the mistreatment of women,” Samardzija said. “The Substance is very grotesque, but it has that satirical element that makes it more highbrow.”
Horror movies aren’t frequently acknowledged by the Oscars — a surprise to some, as it requires acting prowess, clever plot construction and unique visuals to make something convincingly terrifying. That’s not a sign that there’s something intrinsically wrong with the genre, though.
A scene from The Substance. (Mubi/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Samardzija said that the Oscars now tend to favor dramas over all other genres. That includes comedies, though they frequently won during the early years of the awards ceremony. When the number of Best Picture nominees announced each year increased from five to 10 in 2009, that also opened the door for more genres to receive accolades. Still, there have only been three horror Best Picture nominees since then: Black Swan, Get Out and The Substance.
There’s a long history of horror performance snubs at the Oscars, and only four women have ever won Best Actress for a horror role: Ruth Gordon for Rosemary’s Baby in 1969, Kathy Bates for Misery in 1990, Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 and Natalie Portman for Black Swan in 2010. That’s part of what makes Demi Moore’s frontrunner status in this year’s race so compelling, as she racks up awards at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards and the SAG Awards.
What sets Moore apart from other horror actresses to win those accolades is just how bizarre and over the top The Substance is. Toward the film’s end, viewers are engulfed in body horror replete with gore and chaos, diverging from the four Best Actress-winning performances that came before.
Demi Moore in The Substance. (Mubi/Courtesy Everett Collection)
“I think The Substance is probably the most viscerally graphic horror film that’s ever been nominated,” Samardzija said, adding that its strength in the eyes of the academy might come from “the strength of Demi Moore’s performance.”
It helps that Moore, who has been a household name for decades, is beloved by Hollywood and is receiving what many see as long-overdue praise. Samardzija said some of the top awards at the Oscars have a “lifetime achievement aspect” that considers a nominee’s body of work rather than the one singular performance for which they’re specifically being recognized.
In her Golden Globe acceptance speech, Moore said that 30 years ago, a producer told her she was a “popcorn actress,” which made her feel like an award win “wasn’t something I was allowed to have.”
“I celebrate this as a marker of my wholeness and of the love that is driving me and for the gift of doing something I love and being reminded that I do belong,” she said. Her speech went viral, building momentum for her wins throughout the award season.
Even if Moore doesn’t win the Oscar and The Substance goes home empty-handed, it still made an unexpected $77 million at the box office. Horror is currently the fastest-growing film genre, having doubled its market share from 4.87% in 2013 to 10.08% in 2023, according to industry data service the Numbers. It also had a great year in 2024, with critical and theatrical successes like Nosferatu, Longlegs and Smile 2.
Horror-centric streaming service Shudder is opening the door for independent and small studio genre flicks to find a bigger audience, Samardzija said.
The niche genre of body horror could also become more popular as people try to replicate the success of The Substance — or distributors begin to see that audiences can tolerate and delight in that level of gore. Body horror flick Together was one of the highest-selling acquisitions at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
“There’s enough profitability to the genre that it never dies,” Samardzija said, giving horror the same indestructible attribute often bestowed upon its most sinister villains. Moore and The Substance have infused the genre with new life.
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