How 'The Substance's' effects team pulled off Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley's monster makeovers

To become “Gollum,” Moore endured up to seven hours of makeup, with the upper half of her body covered in prosthetics, from hunchback to long fingers to sunken facial makeup. On screen it looks truly grotesque: veins snake across her skin as if poison were flowing through it, and as the film progresses she practically disintegrates before the audience's eyes. “Demi was a real trooper who never complained or even looked bored and allowed herself to be distracted during the process,” says Persin.

The design of Monstro, played by Qualley, was more complicated. The actor wore a body suit with a random assortment of limbs, adding extra limbs and breasts where Sparkle's face was supposed to be – which was instead embedded in Monstro's back, lost in a constant scream (yes, it's the same strange how…). it sounds). “The original designs were very masculine and Coralie wanted something more feminine than just a rubber monster,” says Persin. “She wanted one Elephant Man Sensitivity, a tragic quality.” Nevertheless, it was important to Fargeat that it remained evil. “She asked us to put some teeth into one of her breasts, and we did,” Persin adds. The suit is practical – except for Moore's screaming face, which was done with digital effects.

We get a full glimpse of Monstro in the film's particularly crazy final ten minutes, in which the creature appears on stage at a televised New Year's Eve show, to the dismay of the wealthy audience. The evening soon turns into a nightmare as Monstro shoots blood from every orifice. This effect was achieved using a real fire hose filled with approximately 30,000 gallons of fake blood. “As it was difficult to move around in the suit, the stunt performer sat on a small trolley. As soon as they turned on the blood drill for the first time, it rolled backwards downwards for so long Radiant-like hallway,” explains Persin.

Unsurprisingly, the heavy suit proved to be a challenge on set. The production only had one suit for Qualley's stunt performer, which was made of foam latex, essentially making it a giant sponge. This left it soaked and turning a bloody pink color. “We had to quickly dry it, clean it, sew it and glue it back on,” says Persin for the next day’s shoot.

And then, of course, there was the final shot of the film, where Sparkles' face literally crawls back toward her star on the Walk of Fame. For this particular scene, the team took out a page Raiders of the Lost Arkand dissolved a real SFX head on set. “We used gelatin skin,” says Persin, “filled with tons of blood bags and disgusting stuff in there that we could blow up.” Want to get really sick? Imagine the cleaning bill.

This story originally appeared in British GQ.