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The Substance poster

Movies that feel likeThe Substance (2024)

A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

If you loved The Substance, the closest films we have are Dawn of the Dead (2004), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and M3GAN (2022). All three share The Substance's dread and unsettling feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Resident Evil (2026).

🍅 89% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.2 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Coralie Fargeatdreadunsettlingcerebraldarkly funny
8 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · HBO Max · Amazon Prime Video

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If The Substance hit the spot, these will too

Dawn of the Dead poster
Dawn of the Dead
2004 · dir. Zack Snyder
🍅 77%★ 7.2horror · science fiction · actionStarz

Body horror and dark comedy collide as things spiral out of control

The difference: A flesh-eating zombie siege, not a beauty-industry body-horror satire

A group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world is taken over by aggressive, flesh-eating zombies.

Dawn of the Dead poster
Dawn of the Dead
1978 · dir. George A. Romero
🍅 92%★ 7.8horror · science fiction

Consumerism curdling into grotesque, darkly funny horror

The difference: A mall-siege zombie classic, no beauty-industry satire here

During an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

M3GAN poster
M3GAN
2022 · dir. Gerard Johnstone
🍅 93%★ 6.3science fiction · horrorNetflix

Something engineered to be perfect spiraling past anyone's control

The difference: A killer-doll thriller, no aging-actress body horror at its center

A brilliant toy company roboticist uses artificial intelligence to develop M3GAN, a life-like doll programmed to emotionally bond with her newly orphaned niece. But when the doll's programming works too well, she becomes overprotective of her new friend with terrifying results.

Spring poster
Spring
2014 · dir. Aaron Moorhead
🍅 85%★ 6.7horror · romance · science fiction

A body transforming into something stranger and harder to control

The difference: A slow-burn romance-horror abroad, not a Hollywood beauty satire

A young man in a personal tailspin flees the US to Italy, where he sparks up a romance with a woman harboring a dark, primordial secret.

Pearl poster
Pearl
2022 · dir. Ti West
🍅 93%★ 7horror · dramaPrime VideoMax

Common ground: dark comedy

The difference: Trades the ideas of The Substance for an angle of its own

Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions collide.

Companion poster
Companion
2025 · dir. Drew Hancock
🍅 93%★ 6.9horror · science fiction · thrillerMax

Dread-soaked where it counts, unsettling underneath

The difference: Easier on the dark humor than The Substance

During a weekend getaway at a secluded lakeside estate, a group of friends finds themselves entangled in a web of secrets, deception, and advanced technology. As tensions rise and loyalties are tested, they uncover unsettling truths about themselves and the world around them.

The Hunt poster
The Hunt
2020 · dir. Craig Zobel
🍅 57%★ 6.6action · thriller · horrorRent or buy

Sharp satire wrapped in genuinely unsettling, blackly comic violence

The difference: A human hunting-game thriller, not an aging-and-beauty body horror

Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are—or how they got there. In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, ruthless elitists gather at a remote location to hunt humans for sport. But their master plan is about to be derailed when one of the hunted turns the tables on her pursuers.

The New Mutants poster
The New Mutants
2020 · dir. Josh Boone
🍅 36%★ 5.3science fiction · horrorDisney+

Bodies changing in ways the people inside them can't quite control

The difference: A captive-teen mutant thriller, no beauty-industry commentary

Five young mutants, just discovering their abilities while held in a secret facility against their will, fight to escape their past sins and save themselves.

Resident Evil poster
Resident Evil
2026 · dir. Zach Cregger
★ 7.3horror · science fiction · adventure

Cerebral horror in both cases

The difference: Takes it somewhere less darkly funny than The Substance does

Medical courier Bryan unwittingly finds himself fighting for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.

Brightburn poster
Brightburn
2019 · dir. David Yarovesky
🍅 57%★ 6.1horror · science fiction · dramaPeacock

Both lean on dread more than on science fiction

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister?

28 Years Later poster
28 Years Later
2025 · dir. Danny Boyle
🍅 88%★ 6.6horror · thriller · science fictionNetflix

Horror with a pulse of unease, in both cases

The difference: Leans harder into thriller than The Substance does

Twenty-eight years after the Rage virus outbreak, a heavily-defended island survives connected to the mainland by a single causeway. When one of the group leaves the island into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.

The Platform 2 poster
The Platform 2
2024 · dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
🍅 36%★ 4.9science fiction · horror · thrillerNetflix

A brutal system that literally consumes people to stay young or fed

The difference: A vertical-prison survival allegory, not a beauty-industry body horror

After a mysterious leader imposes his law in a brutal system of vertical cells, a new arrival battles against a dubious food distribution method.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Substance’s defining feeling.