The Beauty may be horror TV but it misses the genre’s point

The Beauty
Ryan Murphy and Matthew Hodgson, Disney+/FX

The intentions and limitations of The Beauty (Disney+/FX), the new series from TV titan Ryan Murphy and collaborator Matthew Hodgson, are on full display in its first scene. Amid the models strutting down a catwalk in Paris, one face is more smouldering than the rest – literally. The unfortunate Ruby (Bella Hadid) is drenched in sweat, so desperate for water she kills the fashionistas for their water bottles. Cornered, gasping with thirst, she spontaneously combusts.

This may grab you – or not. But it is what audiences have come to expect of Murphy (think Glee and American Horror Story). His schlock and awe should have been perfect for The Beauty‘s glossy, gruesome plot, in which two FBI agents investigating deaths in Europe’s fashion capitals uncover a lucrative drug and a sexually transmitted infection, both with glamorising yet lethal effects. In practice, the series is a muddle.

One thing Murphy’s shows have long shared with body horror is that they hinge on whether they find the truth buried in their tastelessness. But the only truth that The Beauty peddles is the futility of climbing the infinite ladder of our beauty standards. So while it occasionally thrills with its gory transformations, including that catwalk carnage, The Beauty‘s social commentary is (sorry) skin-deep, manifesting mostly in cheap swipes at Ozempic users.

Between that and its aesthetic misfires, the series rarely captures the transgressive spirit that makes body horror so special. Worse, it feels unoriginal, not because it’s an adaptation of a popular comic book series, but because it has nothing but obviousness to offer.

To see what The Beauty could have been, consider The Fly, a masterpiece from David Cronenberg that, despite its very different plot, covers remarkably similar ground to The Beauty. Scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is struggling to make his experimental teleportation pods work for living creatures. After becoming romantically involved with reporter Ronnie Quaife (Geena Davis), late-night insecurity prompts him to test his machine, accidentally hybridising himself with an errant fly.

The Fly is is a staggeringly original love story about the limits of intimacy, which uncovers remarkable truths. The slow transformation never quite destroys the love between Seth and Ronnie. The Fly cleverly splices romance and stomach-turning horror without diminishing either, while subtly speaking to themes from the price of ego and gender dysphoria to mania and the AIDS epidemic.

The Beauty also touches on these topics – one character pleads that years of PrEP should help him fight off the strange new infection, while a transgender woman about to medically transition fears the beautifying drug will stop her from doing so. The show even contains a scene where a character slowly pulls off their fingernails, just as Seth does when he realises that something has gone wrong.

But whenever The Beauty‘s producers toy with richer material, they do so in the most didactic way possible. Not so Cronenberg, who lets the resonances of Seth and Ronnie’s story speak for themselves. The lesson is that while we remake the flesh in awful, astonishing ways, the real horror lies in failing to imagine anything new at all.

Bethan also recommends…

The Substance
Coralie Fargeat

Full disclosure: I’m not sure I liked this film very much. But it simply must be watched, even just for the scene in which fading star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) first takes the titular drug and her back splits open, revealing a younger, more beautiful version of herself. The Substance achieves what The Beauty botches, and with a lot more vim and vigour.

Bethan Ackerley is a subeditor at New Scientist. She loves sci-fi, sitcoms and anything spooky. Follow her on X @inkerley