Movie Critique – Elisabeth Moss Gets Substance-d by Kate Hudson in Schlocky Curio

There are moments in the unveiled schlock horror Shell that could paint it as like a wild inebriated cult favorite if viewed separately. Envision the scene where the actress's glamorous beauty mogul forces Elisabeth Moss to masturbate with a giant vibrator while instructing her to gaze into a mirror. Additionally, a initial scene highlighting former dancer Elizabeth Berkley tearfully cutting away growths that have grown on her flesh before being murdered by a masked killer. Then, Hudson offers an sophisticated feast of her removed outer layer to excited attendees. Plus, Kaia Gerber becomes a giant lobster...

It's a shame Shell was as hilariously enjoyable as those descriptions suggest, but there's something strangely dull about it, with performer turned filmmaker Max Minghella struggling to deliver the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as silly as this so obviously needs. The purpose remains unclear what or why Shell is and the target viewers, a low-budget experiment with very little to offer for those who had no role in the filmmaking, feeling even less necessary given its regrettable similarity to The Substance. The two highlight an Hollywood performer striving to get the roles and recognition she thinks she deserves in a cruel industry, wrongly evaluated for her physical traits who is then tempted by a transformative treatment that grants immediate benefits but has terrifying consequences.

Though Fargeat's version hadn't premiered last year at Cannes, four months before Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be flattering. While I was not a big enthusiast of The Substance (a garishly made, too drawn-out and hollow act of shock value partially redeemed by a stellar acting) it had an clear lasting power, swiftly attaining its deserved place within the entertainment world (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 predictable message (beauty standards for women are impossibly punishing!), but it doesn't equal its exaggerated grotesquery, the film ultimately resembling the kind of no-budget rip-off that would have followed The Substance to the VHS outlet back in the day (the inferior sequel, the budget version etc).

The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an actor not known for her lightness, miscast in a role that requires someone more eager to dive into the ridiculousness of the subject matter. She collaborated 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 noticeably six months pregnant, leading to the star being awkwardly covered in a lot of big hoodies and jackets. As an self-doubting performer seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a shell-based beauty regimen, 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 consistently overlooked talent, is again a delight to watch, mastering a specifically LA brand of insincere authenticity backed up by something authentically dark and it's in her all-too-brief scenes that we see what the film could have been. Coupled with a more suitable co-star and a more incisive script, the film could have played like a feverishly mean cross between a 50s “woman's picture” and an 80s creature feature, something Death Becomes Her did so exceptionally.

But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the equally weak action thriller Lou, is never as sharp or as intelligent as it should have been, satire kept to its most transparent (the finale centering on the use of an NDA is more humorous in theory than delivery). Minghella doesn't seem sure in what he's really trying to create, his film as bluntly, lethargically directed as a daytime soap with an equally rubbishy music. If he's trying to do a self-aware direct imitation of a cheap cassette scare, then he hasn't taken it sufficiently into conscious mimicry to sell it as such. Shell should take us all the way into madness, but it's too scared to commit fully.

• Shell is offered for rental digitally in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November