Obviously the subgenre has existed for decades, yet The Substance truly made body horror cool again. One of horror’s most unsung categories gets a racial facelift with Slanted, a twisted coming-of-age tale about the cost of popularity, and the insane price of beauty. Ryan Murphy just tapped into genuine greatness with FX’s The Beauty, and satirical Slanted feels cut from the same cloth. To Joan (Shirley Chen), being prom queen has been her lifelong dream since she was a child. Inundated by imagery of striking blonde Americana and specifically white beauty standards, Joan essentially despises her Asian heritage. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes along—essentially promising Joan a new body of her own—how can she resist? Slanted holds up the mirror to minorities of all shapes and sizes as it puts that age-old lust for popularity under the knife.
At school, Joan struggles socially while her father initially works as a janitor, and her mom fits the traditional role at home. This is not the first time their social status comes into play. In the present, Roger (Fang Du) cleans mansions for snooty white women that appear to revel in making messes for him. At home, her parents embrace their Chinese heritage, speaking Mandarin and encouraging Joan to celebrate traditions. Writer/director Amy Wang draws very concise lines between the generally accepted whiteness and the struggles of Joan and other marginalized people. The school culture reinforces Joan’s obsessions: top to bottom oversized photos of past prom royalty splash the hallways, where nearly everyone looks the same. This line of division is so boldly underlined that the satire blends seamlessly with the horror. Where does real life begin?
Between the bullying and teasing she endures from classmates, mysterious company Ethnos contacts Joan by DM. They claim that she falls into the highest percentile of filter users, and thusly may be entitled to a special reward. At their eerie facility, Dr. Singer (R. Keith Harris) introduces Ethno-Sync, a procedure that permanently alters a person’s ethnicity using advanced cellular technology. The company frames it as liberation from racial injustice: “If you can’t beat them, be them.” The film spends the first act setting up Joan’s normality, making her transformation an even more striking addition to her existence.
She walks in as Joan but walks out as blonde bombshell Jo (Mckenna Grace). Not even her parents recognize her on any level, let alone the catty popular girls at school. Now presenting herself as a transfer student from California, “Jo” quickly gains social acceptance. Her crush (Nicholas Myers) notices her, and she gets welcomed into the popular group—including a warm welcome from Olivia (Amelie Zilber), a popular influencer responsible for starting yet another vapid performative trend. Ironically, the same girls who previously mocked Jo now treat her with admiration. With Olivia vowing to endorse a prom queen rather than run for herself, Jo becomes hopelessly devoted to infiltrating the ranks of the empty socialites, à la Mean Girls.
Grace brings an entirely different vibe to the film than Chen before her, but there’s enough connection tissue to underline that both of these women are, in fact, different versions of Joan. As a new horror scream queen (see: Scream 7 and Five Nights At Freddy’s 2), Grace is already leaving her mark, and her vulnerable performance as Joan may be the most difficult of the ensemble. Joan’s skin starts peeling off in layers, leaving sagging patches she tries to hide with tape and makeup. Ethnos instructs her to apply special creams to conceal the symptoms, implying the body is “adjusting.” While we never quite get to The Substance levels of crazy, Slanted makes a meal of its disturbing body horror implications. By the time we reach the climax, the strength of character study carries us through despite leaving several storylines seemingly unfinished. Maybe the popularity was never the point in the first place; instead, our own self-image may speak louder than a thousand barbs.
Wang emphasizes how easily Joan’s social status changes once she appears white, exposing the implicit racial hierarchy within her school. Wang’s razor-sharp script doesn’t just lazily attack norms and biases, but actually deconstructs why fitting in feels so vital to the younger generation. It’s ultimately a rather quiet film that still leaves time for intimate familial conversations and different viewpoints to the craziness. Exploring identity through body horror may seem old hat. Yet, the use of effective visual symbolism gives it that extra edge. In deconstructing internalized racism through the genre lens, Amy Wang arrives as a bold new voice in horror.
Slanted tweaks with uniqueness when it debuts exclusively in theaters on Friday, March 13th.
