Film

Death Becomes Her

Death Becomes Her is Robert Zemeckis's gleefully vicious 1992 comedy about two aging rivals who drink a magic potion promising eternal youth, only to discover immortality comes with grotesque side effects. Streep and Hawn commit fully to the slapstick body horror, groundbreaking effects and all. It's for anyone who wants vanity satire delivered with real venom, glossy studio polish, and a body count that keeps climbing even after death stops mattering.

TMDb rating6.8

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The Substance2024

A brutal, gleeful spiritual sequel — two women, one body, a beauty industry that eats itself alive. Same rage at ageism, cranked up to full-blown gore.

But Where Death Becomes Her winks, this one screams; the body horror is genuinely stomach-turning rather than just funny.

The Substance poster

Beetlejuice1988

Zemeckis's fellow traveler in practical-effects mayhem — Tim Burton turns death into manic, rubber-faced comedy with the same anything-goes energy.

But Less about vanity and rivalry, more haunted-house chaos; the plot barely holds together and doesn't try to.

Beetlejuice poster

The Witches of Eastwick1987

Three women, one devilishly charming man, and a supernatural bargain that spirals into gleeful, over-the-top chaos — same be-careful-what-you-wish-for wickedness.

But More seduction-comedy than body horror; the effects-driven finale is fun but nowhere near as inventive.

The Witches of Eastwick poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Fly1986

Both films use body horror as the engine for a story about vanity, decay, and what we'll do to stop it — Death Becomes Her runs that engine for camp, The Fly runs the exact same engine for tragedy.

Same practical-effects body-horror pedigree, but Cronenberg plays the decay for tragedy — a man's slow transformation becomes a devastating meditation on love and mortality.

But There's no punchline here; watching a body fail is meant to break your heart, not make you cackle.

The Fly poster
More like this (8)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?1962

The grandmother of grotesque actress rivalry — Bette Davis and Joan Crawford curdle real-life feuding into a decaying showdown over fading beauty and fame.

But Black and white, slow-burn, and genuinely unsettling rather than played for camp laughs throughout.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? poster

She-Devil1989no page yet

Streep again, this time gleefully vengeful, in a pitch-black comedy about a wronged wife destroying the woman who stole her husband — made just three years earlier.

But Rougher and less polished than Death Becomes Her, with a meaner, less fantastical sense of humor.

The First Wives Club1996

A trio of scorned women turn humiliation into gloriously orchestrated revenge — same appetite for punishing cruelty with style, minus the magic potion.

But Warmer and more sentimental underneath the comedy; it wants you to root for its heroines, not just laugh at them.

The First Wives Club poster

Serial Mom1994

John Waters at his most deliriously suburban — a seemingly perfect housewife who murders anyone who offends her sense of propriety, played entirely for gleeful shock.

But Trashier and cruder than Zemeckis's polished Hollywood satire; the humor is broader, the target audience niche.

Serial Mom poster

Drag Me to Hell2009

Sam Raimi doing what he does best — horror and slapstick fused so tightly you can't tell where the scream ends and the laugh begins.

But No beauty-industry satire here, just a cursed bank loan officer; the connection is tone, not theme.

Drag Me to Hell poster

Mommie Dearest1981

The camp classic about a Hollywood star's terrifying obsession with control, image, and youth — so overwrought it became a cult comedy despite being played straight.

But Genuinely mean-spirited in places, and its camp reputation was accidental rather than intended by the filmmakers.

Mommie Dearest poster

Sunset Boulevard1950

Both are about women who refuse to age gracefully and the monstrous lengths that refusal takes them to; Sunset Boulevard got there four decades earlier and played it as tragedy instead of slapstick.

Billy Wilder's original telling of the same fear — a woman who cannot accept that her beauty and relevance have expired, told as devastating black-and-white noir rather than farce.

But There's no potion, no comedy, and no happy chaos — just a slow, merciless portrait of denial.

Sunset Boulevard poster

Santa Clarita Diet2017

Same premise stretched into serialized form — undeath as a darkly comic inconvenience rather than horror, with the same appetite for gross-out gags about bodies that won't behave.

A suburban mom turns undead and gleefully embraces it, dragging her hapless family into black comedy about decomposition, appetite, and marriage — stretched over three binge-friendly seasons.

But Lower budget, sitcom rhythms, and a shaggier sense of humor than Zemeckis's slick studio gloss.

Santa Clarita Diet poster

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