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

The star gives the performance of her career — but also brings a history with Hollywood that makes this body-horror movie hit that much harder.

Demi Moore has provided a glimpse into how she filmed intense, gory scenes for her new horror film ‘The Substance’

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.

Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle in ‘The Substance,’ a satirical horror that focuses on the pressures of body standards.

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.