A batch of new films arrives on UK television this week, ranging from a satirical horror on beauty standards to a Christie-esque mystery aboard a luxury yacht.
Demi Moore stars in The Substance as Elisabeth, a 50-year-old film star reduced to hosting an aerobics show. After her boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid), pushes her aside, she undergoes a mysterious procedure that creates a younger clone, Sue (Margaret Qualley). The film, a satire on female ageing, airs on Friday 17 October on Paramount+.
Keira Knightley plays journalist Laura in The Woman in Cabin 10, who joins a cruise with a terminally ill Norwegian shipping heiress, her husband, and other wealthy guests. When a woman goes overboard and is denied by everyone, Laura’s investigative instincts emerge. It is available now on Netflix. Also on streaming, Steven Soderbergh’s Presence is a supernatural drama told from a ghost’s point of view, featuring Lucy Liu and Callina Liang as a mother and daughter in a new home with a protective spirit. It shows on Saturday 11 October on Sky Cinema Premiere.
On Channel 4, Saturday 11 October at 9pm, Nicolas Cage plays a self-obsessed version of himself in a comedy in which he is hired by a billionaire fan (Pedro Pascal) to attend a birthday party and is then asked by the CIA to spy on him. Later, on Film4 at 10.50pm, a horror film sees a boy named Finney (Mason Thames) abducted by a man called the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) and held in a basement, where a phone rings with spooky callers.
On Tuesday 14 October at 1.15am, Film4 airs a biopic of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, with Jessica Chastain in the title role and Andrew Garfield as her husband Jim. Finally, Soderbergh’s spy thriller, with Michael Fassbender as a British agent hunting a traitor among five suspects including his wife (Cate Blanchett), screens on Friday 17 October on Sky Cinema Premiere.
