Movie Critique – The Actress Gets Substance-d by Kate Hudson in Oddball Film

There are sequences in the unveiled B-movie frightfest Shell that would make it seem like a giddy tipsy cult favorite if viewed separately. Imagine the part where the actress's seductive health guru forces her co-star to masturbate with a enormous device while forcing her to look into a looking glass. Moreover, a abrupt beginning highlighting former performer Elizabeth Berkley emotionally hacking off growths that have developed on her body before being slaughtered by a unknown murderer. Next, Hudson offers an refined meal of her shed epidermis to eager diners. Furthermore, Kaia Gerber turns into a giant lobster...

It's a shame Shell was as wildly entertaining as that all makes it sound, but there's something oddly flat about it, with performer turned filmmaker Max Minghella struggling to deliver the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as ridiculous as this so obviously needs. Audiences may wonder what or why Shell is and its intended audience, a inexpensive endeavor with few attractions for those who had no role in the filmmaking, seeming more redundant given its unlucky likeness to The Substance. Both center on an Los Angeles star striving to get the attention and work she believes is her due in a harsh business, unjustly judged for her looks who is then tempted by a revolutionary process that offers quick results but has terrifying consequences.

Even if Fargeat's version hadn't premiered last year at Cannes, ahead of Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the parallel would still not be kind. Although I was not a particular fan of The Substance (a gaudily crafted, overlong and shallow act of provocation partially redeemed by a killer lead performance) it had an unmistakable memorability, readily securing its deserved place within the culture (expect it to be one of the most mocked movies in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same level of depth to its and-then-what commentary (expectations for women's looks are unreasonably brutal!), but it can't match its over-the-top body horror, the film finally evoking the kind of low-cost copycat that would have followed The Substance to the video store back in the day (the lesser counterpart, the knock-off etc).

Surprisingly starring by Moss, an actress not known for her levity, poorly suited in a role that requires someone more willing to dive into the ridiculousness of the territory. She worked with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can see why they both might crave a break from that show's relentless darkness), and he was so desperate for her to lead that he decided to accommodate her being visibly six months pregnant, resulting in the star being obviously concealed in a lot of big hoodies and outerwear. As an uncertain star seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a crustaceous skin routine, she might not really persuade, but as the sinister 68-year-old CEO of a life-threatening beauty brand, Hudson is in far greater control.

The actress, who remains a always underestimated star, is again a pleasure to watch, excelling at a specifically LA brand of pretend sincerity underscored by something genuinely sinister and it's in her all-too-brief scenes that we see what the film might have achieved. Paired with a more fitting co-star and a more incisive script, the film could have played like a deliriously nasty cross between a 50s “woman's picture” and an 80s creature feature, something Death Becomes Her did so brilliantly.

But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the just as flaccid action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as intelligent as it could be, mockery kept to its most blatant (the ending hinging on the use of an NDA is more amusing in idea than execution). Minghella doesn't seem confident in what he's really trying to create, his film as bluntly, slowly filmed as a afternoon serial with an equally rubbishy score. If he's trying to do a knowing exact duplicate of a bottom shelf VHS horror, then he hasn't pushed hard enough into deliberate homage to convince the audience. Shell should take us all the way into madness, but it's too fearful to commit fully.

• Shell is up for hire online in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November