The Internet Has Chosen A 2024 Horror Movie To Watch On New Year's Eve, And It's The Most Chaotic (And Genius) Idea

Dennis Quaid smiling in The Substance trailer
(Image credit: Working Title)

What are you doing on New Year’s Eve? It’s the popular question of the evening, and one that horror fans have easily answered thanks to one of the buzziest 2024 movies. Sure, you could watch Ryan Seacrest’s 20th time hosting Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve celebration, but I love the internet’s idea for how to start 2025. With The Substance.

While it's a movie that’s just about too bizarre to recommend, The Substance was also named the best movie of the year by CinemaBlend. Twitter is talking about watching the movie this New Year’s Eve, thanks to a pivotal scene that occurs on the last evening of the year.

The final scene of The Substance, that is still giving me legit nightmares, has the main character Elisabeth Sparkle hosting her own New Year’s Eve broadcast at the same time as she’s having a horrific reaction to a drug she’s been taking. Here’s when fans recommend turning on the film for the ultimate experience:

The Substance follows Demi Moore as a famous actress who is kicked off her long-running aerobics TV show on the day of her 50th birthday. After getting into an accident, she is referred to an off-market drug called The Substance that will allow her to live life as her younger self every two weeks. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a bloody, queasy good time that also has so much to say about how detrimental the lack of self love can be on someone, especially when they let all the unrealistic societal expectations of beauty take over.

Considering most of us usually start the new year having “lose weight”, “eat healthier” or “exercise more” on our resolutions (seriously, Statista found 51 percent of U.S. adults penciled one of those in), The Substance is actually a genius movie to ring in the new year. Literally, if you're not careful. Plus, it starts the year with a unique bang…

With 2025 almost here, there’s a ton of upcoming horror movies we’re excited for, but it’s really going to be tough to top what’s going on with The Substance. Given these social media responses, it sounds like the movie starring Demi Moore could go down in history as a twisted New Year’s Eve tradition for some.

If you’re looking to start your 2025 with a body horror bloodbath, you can stream with a Mubi subscription (which is offering 7 days free) or rent/buy it on Amazon. Happy New Year! Enjoy sparkling your life with this absolutely unhinged NYE pick should you dare to.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.