The Wasp Woman and The Substance: Sixty-Five Years of the Same Fear

 

by Tara Adams
The Creature Beat

Watching “The Wasp Woman” today, it’s hard not to think about “The Substance.”

On the surface they’re totally different movies. One is a low-budget late-’50s creature feature, and the other is a modern, glossy body-horror shocker. But the core idea driving both stories is surprisingly similar.

Both movies revolve around the same obsession: the fear of aging and the desperate chase for youth.

In “The Wasp Woman,” cosmetics executive Janice Starlin sees her beauty empire slipping as she gets older. Her answer is a risky new serum made from wasp enzymes that promises to restore youth. Of course, the miracle treatment works a little too well, turning her into something monstrous.

“The Substance” takes that same anxiety and cranks it up to eleven. Demi Moore’s character is an aging celebrity who feels discarded by an industry that worships youth. She turns to an experimental treatment that creates a younger version of herself. Instead of simply restoring youth, it splits her identity and unleashes a whole new kind of body horror.

There’s one moment in The Wasp Woman that almost feels like a primitive version of what modern body-horror movies like The Substance would later run with.

In “The Wasp Woman,” there’s a scene where Janice Starlin begins noticing the side effects of the serum. At first, it’s subtle. She looks younger, more energetic and almost triumphant that the experiment is working. But then the cracks start to show. Her behavior becomes erratic, her temper flares, and she starts isolating herself while the transformation creeps in.

What makes the scene interesting is the shift in tone. It goes from excitement about reclaiming youth to quiet dread. She realizes the treatment is doing more than she bargained for, but by that point she’s already hooked on the results.

“The Substance” builds an entire film around that exact emotional pivot. The early stages of the treatment feel like a miracle. Youth, beauty, attention are all back. But the deeper the character gets into the process, the more it becomes clear that the cure isn’t something you can simply stop using. It starts demanding more, and the consequences get uglier.

Another similarity is how both characters hide what’s happening from the people around them. In “The Wasp Woman,” Janice retreats into secrecy as the physical changes worsen. She knows if anyone sees what’s happening, the experiment and her reputation are finished.

In “The Substance,” the secrecy is even more extreme, but the motivation is the same: once you’ve gambled everything on staying young, admitting the truth would mean admitting defeat.

What’s fascinating is that “The Wasp Woman” handles all this with the limitations of a 1950s B-movie, such as simple effects, quick pacing, and a creature reveal near the end. “The Substance,” on the other hand, stretches the idea into full-blown modern body horror.

But the emotional core is nearly identical:

That moment when a character realizes the miracle cure they trusted has started turning them into something they can’t control anymore.

It’s a great example of how old drive-in horror ideas never really disappear. They just evolve. The anxieties about aging, beauty, and identity that show up in “The Wasp Woman” are still haunting horror movies more than 60 years later. 

Even though the movies were made 65 years apart, they’re wrestling with the same uncomfortable idea: society tells women their value fades with age. Both characters try to fight that clock with science, and both end up paying a heavy price.

There’s also a shared “experiment gone wrong” structure. 

In “The Wasp Woman,” the serum gradually transforms Janice into a creature she can’t control. In “The Substance,” the treatment spirals into a grotesque loss of control over the body and identity. In both cases, the promise of perfection turns into a nightmare.

What’s interesting is how each film reflects its era. “The Wasp Woman” plays like a cautionary B-movie about vanity and mad science. “The Substance” feels more like a brutal satire about fame, beauty standards, and the entertainment industry chewing people up and spitting them out.

Different decades, different styles, but underneath the surface, both movies are telling the same creepy story: if you try to beat aging with a miracle cure, don’t be surprised when the cure bites back.