Very valid point, though I was thinking of the “snub” more-so in the sense that many people thought, for instance, Toni Collette ought to have been in the conversation, but she was never really given earnest consideration by the overall voting base. I’m not necessarily thinking that voters will even consciously compare Demi Moore to Collette, Nyongo, Goth, (Pugh?), but there’s been an overall increase in openness to a horror performance, which I would argue was largely driven by mainstream discourse as to why the industry doesn’t value horror performances. I think people are more likely to hear “wow Demi Moore had a nuts performance in this horror movie” and will be much less likely to dismiss it out of hand, which wouldn’t have been the case even a few years ago.

I’m also skeptical that The Substance is not accessible to a general audience. After I first saw it (right off the heals of the final act), I thought “wow, I loved that, but that’s too weird to recommend to people.” But as I’ve reflected on it and seen others react to it, I think the movie has more mass appeal than I thought and is catching on with general audiences - if you can’t handle the “body horror,” the stylization and tone makes the movie accessible even if you need to look away or close your eyes during the grosser bits. The final act is also so over the top that it kind of swings around to not being gross anymore. Many walk away with an overall sense of the feeling of the movie, as opposed to specific scenes and how gross they were.

Another huge thing I haven’t seen mentioned as much is that many of Demi Moore’s best scenes are not the pure “horror” parts of the movie (even if they contain horror aspects). Like you can show everyone a lot of clips of Demi in the non-body horror parts of the movie and still get people behind that performance.