The Stuff

Writer/Director Larry Cohen seems to make pictures that bear some important philosophical/social thread to them very often against a background of absurdity, sheer silliness, and subtle good performances. directions, etc... The Stuff is no exception and while nowhere as good(as far as I am concerned) a Q or It's Alive - The Stuff has a lot going for it. Oozing yogurt-like substance(alien source perhaps) is being manufactured and sold and becomes a million dollar plus commodity. Trouble is it has amazingly devastating after-effects. While The Stuff is one of Cohen's less serious films in style, it is profound if you look for it to be. It makes fun of crass consumerism, retailing, marketing, the army, the government, big business, and so many other things - all with a humorous slant but with a cutting undertow. Michael Moriarity again stars as the lead in a Cohen film and as always gives a pretty good performance. He always gives the films an air of credibility. The rest of the cast is good at playing it as half-serious with Garrett Morris standing out as well as Paul Sorvino as a macho military man. And what about the white stuff? Well, it is creepier than you might expect as it can do all kinds of things. And the saddest part is that while the story is heavily exaggerated - I found it to be credible given more realistic criteria. Cohen hits the mark on the nature of 20th century consumers and beyond.

What's this great cast doing in "The Stuff"? If there's nothing else on, and your VCR's out, go ahead... waste a chunk of the evening. I saw this at first release. The concept, an evil dessert (really), did sound goofy enough to get me into the theatre. (I used to kind-of like those bad '70s movies about ordinary things that wind up killing people... cars, houses, flowers, TVs and what-all...until that wore a little thin.) So I WANTED it to be good, but... "The Stuff" turned out to be so bad that it was bad. And a box-office bomb, as I recall, when the word got out. It tried to be scary AND spoofy, and was neither. Just tedious. (But there was one good scene with Garrett Morris and early computer animation as "the stuff" gets him, too.) Anyway, the theatre manager gave me an inflatable promotional lobby display of a bucketful of "stuff", which I look at on occasion and ponder why A), Hollywood does this to people who keep trusting it, and B), what great talents such as these (Moriarty, Aiello, Scourby, Marcovicci et al) were thinking at the time. I voted it a 2.

The industrial spy and former FBI agent David 'Mo' Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) is hired by executives of the ice-cream industry to disclose the receipt of the successful marshmallow desert called "The Stuff". Their consumers become addicted in the product, and the competitors want the formula. With the support of Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), the promoter of The Stuff, and the boy Jason (Scott Bloom), 'Mo' tries to prove that The Stuff is apparently an alien being trying to dominate the mind of the population of Earth. "The Stuff" is a funny and cult trash movie. It looks like a Troma movie, or one of the first Peter Jackson's films, with a criticism to the exaggerated consume of the American society. The intention of The Stuff in dominating the mind of the population is not explained along the story and for me this is the great flaw of the screenplay. The characters are very interesting: 'Mo' Rutherford is the hero, indeed an ambitious anti-hero, who spies, blackmails and cheats; Jason is a rebel teenager, who does not obey his parents; Col. Malcolm Grommett Spears is a stupid and boastful military, full of prejudice and racist; Nicole is the typical girl-friend of the hero of the movies of the 40s or 50s; the entrepreneurs are corrupt, trying to steal the secrets of other companies. All of them together make this movie a worthwhile entertainment. The DVD released on Brazil has a bug in the Menu screen: if the viewer clicks the remote control to see the movie, the DVD stops. A tip to the Brazilian readers: to leave the Menu and start the movie, it is necessary to go first to the Scene Selection screen. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "A Coisa" ("The Stuff")

Talk about a mouthful of double entendres. Clearly, this film was trying too hard to take itself seriously, which is what makes this movie such a hoot. With bad visual effects, this film seems to stink in every department imagined. However, it does make a startling commentary about America's consumer hoard mentality. We prove to be too accepting of things that are deemed cool and new. Not much else to say about this cracker-jack movie. I will say this, Paul Sorvino played the racist militant perfectly.

The film opens on a dark night with an employee of a mine discovering a white substance bubbling up from a hole in the ground. He dips his fingers in it and tastes a bit, and then tastes some more. A fellow work colleague walks over, tastes some and is also immediately addicted to the stuff! They decide to market it and sell it as some kind of desert. A young boy Jason (Scott Bloom) can't sleep, he gets up and goes downstairs for something to eat. As he opens the fridge he sees a carton of the stuff on it's side with the lid off, and next to it is a dollop of the stuff but he is shocked to see it's moving on it's own, like it's alive! The executives at Amalgamated dairies are upset because this stuff is blowing their ice cream sales out of the water. Nobody seems to know how it's made or what's in it, but people are queueing up to buy it. They decide to hire ex FBI David Rutherford (Micheal Moriarty) to obtain the secret of the stuff by any means necessary. First of all he targets Nicole Kendall (Andrea Marcovicci) the person who designed the highly successful ad campaign for the stuff, from her agency in New York. Together they begin to discover that the stuff is a deadly living organism that takes over peoples bodies and minds. They trace the factory where the stuff is supposedly made, but they find out it's pumped into trucks straight from the ground. However, the people responsible for the stuff want to keep where their big money earning desert comes from a secret. And are prepared to kill to do so. Directed by Larry Cohen I liked it, but I didn't think it was as good as one of his earlier horror's Q-the Winged Serpent (1982). I don't really think he had the budget to do the ambitious story the way he wanted. The stuff is supposed to be taking over America, tens of millions of people, yet we see none of this, just New York and a few small towns. Also, there is only one factory producing the stuff? Even though the whole of America is addicted to it? Could one small factory produce enough to cover the whole of America? One radio broadcast is enough to turn the whole of America against the stuff? Having said that the film is still extremely enjoyable, and the script by Cohen is very good, with an interesting central premise, some sharp social satire, and remains entertaining even during it's slower moments. But there are problems, it's never properly explained why the stuff is taking over people or what it has to gain by doing so, and the character of Col. Malcolm Grommit Spears played by Paul Sorvino and his troops are a little over the top and silly. The film doesn't really contain much violence or gore and some of the effects aren't that great, especially the effects of the factory blowing up at the end, obviously just models, once again the budget probably didn't help. But the scene toward the end when a character vomits up a load of the stuff, and his head splits open is quite gross. There are some creepy moments in there too, I liked the sequence where Jason is trapped in the back of a tanker which is slowly being filled with the stuff, it slowly moves towards him with no apparent way out. All in all a great little horror film that is consistently entertaining and certainly worth a watch.

The Stuff is one of those movies you always walk by at your local Mom and Pop video store. I always loved the cover when I was younger, but I was always very hesitant about the horror section, mainly because every movie in there seemed too old. Years later, I'm accepting the cheese like it's a brother and tell you what, I'm so glad I waited to see this. The Stuff is the sh!t. The story starts with a couple guys finding this white, creamy ooze coming out of the ground. The one dude who initially discovered it actually tastes it! And low and behold the Stuff actually tastes great! Not long later this creamy ooze is now a nation wide dessert hit and has been named The Stuff. A oddball trio of sorts, private investigator, little boy who has great intuition for alien desserts, and a campaign organizer band together to stop people from eating The Stuff and get down to figure out exactly what it is. What follows is in my opinion easily one of the best horror/comedies that came out of the 80s. It's got a great lead with Michael Moriarty, who delivers his lines like a recent famous president, and an entertaining supporting cast which includes Danny Aiello and Garrett Morris (classic SNL). One thing I don't understand about this flick though. Why on Earth is it Rated R? I suppose there's a couple scenes of gore, but damn this felt very light-hearted and comical. I suppose I just didn't pick up on the swears. Also if anyone reading this is a fan of Futurama, I couldn't help but think of the Slurm episode...realizing the famous product originates from a hideous source. Nevertheless, The Stuff has all the ingredients for a fun night, and if you've been looking for a classic 80's horror flick to watch, look no further.

I've always been a movie fan. Wild horses couldn't keep me from the ticket office on Saturdays. I often watch 2 or 3 movies in one visit. So I went to see The Stuff. Why not? I'll tell you why not. The story line is preposterous, without the good sense to be played for camp. It actually takes itself seriously. I mean really. White gooey ooze that seeps from the ground, and people can't resist it. No, really. Then when people eat it they turn into zombies. Had enough? There's more. Once fully zombicized, victims puke The Stuff down someone else's throat and infect them. That's almost what I did. Puke. I couldn't decide which was worse, wasting my time staying till the end, wasting my money and walking out, or wasting the theatre's resources by making them play this crap all the way through, since I was the only person in the theatre. Please, please, for god's sake, don't see this horror of a movie. It is absolutely, positively without a doubt the worst movie ever made.

The stuff is a b-horror film from the mid 80's. It is classified as a "body horror film". The general idea is that a substance is found that is one of the best tasting products in the world, but it is actually a living, hive mind creature intent on taking over humanity. After reading rave reviews about 'The Stuff', I decided to give it a go. I was raised on horror films from the 80's and 90's and am a gore hound at heart. The stuff was listed as one of the top body horror films of the 80's and it intrigued me. But it wasn't anything that I expected. For a body horror film, the stuff is incredibly non-violent. There are a few scenes that may be slightly disturbing, but it's few and far between. Further, the film suffers from terrible writing and characters that making completely stupid decisions. Scenes jump all over the place, the overall plot hardly makes any sense. A great example is when the main character Moe is trying to expose the stuff as a dangerous substance, so while trespassing on private property, instead of taking photos for evidence he decides he has to steal one of their trucks as evidence. I mean, what? Or how about how the film makes it look like that the entire population is in love with The Stuff, only to broadcast a radio show that says it's bad and suddenly they manage to just make it all go away? I mean really. I am no stranger to old horror films, but The Stuff is just absolutely absurd and boring in almost every capacity.

They should remake/reimagine 'The Stuff.' The premise is good, for B-Movie quality, that is, and was originally well executed in the film. Then all of a sudden, the director and actors remembered they were making a silly B-Movie and acted accordingly. But, even with the worst B-Movies, there is always a level of consistency, such as the similar 'The Blob.' The original 'Blob' showed us a creature (mass) that consumed victims and grew bigger. The horrid 1988 remake showed us a (now) pink blob and gave a more realistic reasoning behind why it consumed humans. (Pink?) 'Stuff' shows us some yogurt that pumps from the ground, sometimes moves on its own, sometimes doesn't. Sometimes it leaves its host and returns, sometimes it leaves killing the host. Sometimes it's allergic to fire (a cheap reverse rip off of the freezing cold enemy of the Blob) sometimes it rolls in it. Sometimes it needs to be refrigerated, sometimes it's fine warm. There was no consistency. I am aware it is a campy B-Movie, but like I said in the beginning, there was hope here for a decent sci-fi thriller – so remake it with a better script. It was if the creators had "special effects" to spare and screamed 'Look at what I can do!' (Said in best Stuart voice from MadTV reruns.) Believe it or not, the main character (not that boy – oh, God, I hope this was his first/last film) 'Mo' Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) was actually funny enough to get through to the end. I first watched this film when I was 8 or 9 and it freaked me out beyond terror. Not that I would recommend it to the under 10 crowd, but you'd really have to have that mentality to be scared of…'The Stuff.'

Bounty hunter and TV advertiser team up together to discover what the ingredients are in a popular junk food that is sweeping the country, called The Stuff. However, they uncover a conspiracy in which the makers of The Stuff know that their product is causing people to become mindless zombies. Exciting and funny little Cohen film is a throwback to the horror films of yesteryear, yet with all your usual Cohen trimmings, but much more solid then usual with good special effects and an original premise. The cast is excellent and the film has various cameo's planted throughout the film. Rated R; Violence & Profanity.