He feels at home in places we would flee from and lives his life among the very things we fear. Throughout his life, HR Giger had inhabited the world of the uncanny, a dark universe on the brink of many an abyss. It was the only way this amiable, modest and humorous man was able to keep his fears in check. Giger was merely the bearer of dark messages, charting our nightmares, drafting maps of our subconscious and molding our primal fears. A film with and about the internationally acclaimed and controversial painter, sculptor, architect and designer (Oscar for 'Alien').

By coincidence rather then by design the swiss chemist Albert Hofmann makes a sensational discovery in the spring of 1943. He realizes that he is dealing with a powerful molecule that will have an impact not only on the scientific world. THE SUBSTANCE - is an investigation into our troubled relation with LSD. Told from its beginnings until today.