THE SUBSTANCE, the second film directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat (Revenge), made some big waves when it got the award for Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival this May. And now, the eagerly awaited creature feature and splatter-fest garnered another award –the Golden Sledge Hammer Award for Best Film at the Slaughter Festival of Horror Film in Doljevac, Serbia.
The festival takes place in a former slaughterhouse, now adapted to host a horror film festival, and its program director is Dejan Ognjanović, the Bram Stoker award finalist (2022), and recipient of the Rondo Hatton award (2023), whose film and book reviews and articles are a staple of RUE MORGUE.
The jury of Slaughter Fest 2024 was presided over by Romain Roll, a genre cinema expert from Luxembourg, and its members included Luka Bursać (director of the Serbian horror anthology film, Videotheque) and Arpad Slančik (the artist known for the very creepy sculptures that decorated the venue this year).
“THE SUBSTANCE, directed by Coralie Fargeat, is awarded for its courageous approach, originality in the reimagining of the great body horror classics and for the successful and bold breaking down of the barriers between the so-called festival film and genre film,” the jury explained in a recent statement.
Slaughter Fest’s jury also awarded the Golden Sledge Hammer for the best Serbian short horror film to Miasma, directed by Petar Tkalec. Special mention goes to The Well by Federico Zampaglione, “a brutal horror film which reminds us of the golden days of Italian horror cinema.”
THE SUBSTANCE is scheduled for release in the United States this September. See the trailer now!
