The Grossest Horror Movies to Watch Next If You Loved ‘The Substance,’ You Sicko

Once you’ve got your last-minute costume squared away, why not spend this Halloween cackling (or peeking through your fingers—no judgment) at one of the grossest horror movies you can find?

We’re in the middle of a splatter renaissance. In Coralie Fargeat’s indie hit The Substance, one of 2024’s best horror movies, Demi Moore plays an aging Hollywood superstar who takes a mysterious drug on the promise that it will return her to her youth. And yes, that sort of happens—a new, younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley) emerges from her back like a creature from Alien, and the rest of the film concerns their increasingly queasy struggle to coexist.

We wouldn’t want to spoil it, but the ending of The Substance is one of the ickiest things you’ll ever see on the big screen. It was part of 2024’s movie-gore renaissance, which also saw Damien Leone’s triumphantly gnarly Terrifier 3 beat out Joker: Folie à Deux to the number one spot during its opening weekend; earlier in the year, acid-blood-spurting Alien sequel Alien: Romulus became the second-highest-grossing film in the franchise after 2012’s Prometheus, while the brutal slasher In a Violent Nature was one of the biggest hits at 2024’s Sundance Film Festival.

But what’s driving our collective blood thirst at the multiplex? Perhaps it’s the same thing that’s ensured continued success of horror movies at large. Films replete with body horror and gore are communal endurance tests for film-goers, such is why savvy marketers like to amplify (often exaggerated) stories of audiences fainting in their seats or throwing up in the aisles to sell tickets. You go, you squirm in your seat at the visceral fabricated violence, you live to tell the tale. It’s all in good fun, if you have the guts.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t wade into the splatterverse at home. Get comfy, fill up a bloodbath—here’s where to start with gory horror movies.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)