The Substance ending, explained: What happens to Sue and Elisabeth?

Coralie Fargeat is back with her second film, The Substance. This time, she tackles the body horror subgenre. While her first movie, Revenge, was a great subversion of the typical rape-revenge thriller, The Substance takes things to a whole new level with its exploration of aging, unattainable beauty standards, sexism, and more.

The Substance is a long movie, running over two hours, and there is a lot to keep track of by the time things reach their climax. Let's break down what happens in the end and what it all means for the story Fargeat is telling.

The ultimate showdown between Sue and Elisabeth

Eventually, the hatred between Sue and Elisabeth boils over into one of the most viscerally violent scenes in the entire movie. Sue decides she never wants to be "Elisabeth" again, so she refuses to switch when her seven days are up and instead drains all of the spinal fluid from her older self until she's depleted. With none left, Sue is forced to switch back so the stabilizer fluid regenerates. Since Sue did not respect the balance and took everything from Elisabeth, leaving her completely altered, misshapen, hunched over, and crone-like.

Seeing herself in this state, Elisabeth panics and calls The Substance hotline to learn how to terminate the experiment. They send her a termination injection, but Elisabeth cannot bring herself to kill off Sue completely. She stops just before injecting all of the serum and instead revives her other self. Doing this causes a weird mistake that allows Sue and Elisabeth to be awake at the same time. When Sue realizes what Elisabeth was trying to do, she attacks her. The fight is long, drawn-out, and bloody as hell. Sue emerges victorious, brutally beating Elisabeth's body to a bloody pulp.

Birth of Monstro Elisasue

As any horror fan knows, there are always consequences when characters neglect to follow the rules set before them. Sue is the only living part of the "self" she shared with Elisabeth, but without any more stabilizer, her body, too, begins deteriorating. Sue is dressed in her beautiful blue gown, prepared to host the New Year's Eve show, when her body starts to revolt. Her teeth fall out. Her ear falls off. It quickly becomes apparent that Sue cannot go on stage in this shape.

She panics and returns to the apartment in search of the remaining activation serum that started the entire process, with the aim of creating yet another version of herself. One who is even better than "Sue." Instead, what emerges from Sue's body is Cronenbergian monstrosity dubbed Monstro Elisasue, a conglomeration of Sue, Elisabeth, and a random assortment of other body parts. She's grown into something completely deformed, and yet, for the first time in the movie, "Elisasue" seems content. She's literally shed her old skin and emerged into something brand new.

Elisasue puts her dress back on and slowly makes her way to the NYE stage, where she displays her new form to everyone, horrifying the attendees. You can even see Elisabeth's face sticking out of her back, trapped and gasping for air.

The crowd erupts into panic and horror over the sight of Monstro Elisasue, especially when a new breast pops out of her face and ruptures, dropping to the floor after dangling from a bloody vein. Hey, those producers did say, "too bad her boobs aren't in the center of her face!" The attendees try to attack and kill Elisasue, ripping off some of her limbs in the skirmish, leading Elisasue's head to explode, resulting in one of the most bonkers sequences of the entire film where Elisasue douses the entire theater with a seemingly never-ending shower of blood.

After that bloody spectacle, Elisasue leaves the theater and makes it outside, albeit barely. Her body starts breaking down, melting into a puddle of blood, guts, and viscera until the only thing that remains is Elisabeth's face in a pile of sludge. Elisabeth uses the last of her strength to push herself toward the Hollywood Walk of Fame, coming to a rest on her Elisabeth Sparkle star in a moment that bookends the film's opening sequence. She slowly melts into the cement, and then a street sweeper washes her away for good.

Coralie Fargeat discusses the finale's violence and audience complicity

Director and writer Coralie Fargeat spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the climactic ending of The Substance, explaining that Monstro Elisasue is a physical representation of "the monstrous part that we try to hide so much because we feel that we can't adapt or fit."

As for all the blood at the end (35,000 gallons, to be exact), the director says that moment was basically meant to be a big "f--- you," to everything really. The entire movie is eviscerating our society's obsession with unrealistic standards of beauty and how women are treated when they reach a certain age.

"You’re all complicit in crafting this violence, so this is the violence back. It’s symbolic: Look at the violence, don’t shy away."

It's a very in-your-face message to us as the viewers and the people within the universe of The Substance. We've all been complicit at one point or another in upholding these patriarchal values, whether it's by treating someone differently based on their appearance or because of their age or just by becoming eager participants in the beauty industry—going under the knife and undergoing all kinds of wild, exorbitant procedures to chase after the illusion of youth. There's a lot to unpack here, and The Substance does a great job of diving into the deep end headfirst.

The Substance is now playing in select theaters nationwide.