The Stuff

A while back I wrote about Larry Cohen’s movie, Q the Winged Serpent and complained that I wanted more screen time for the monster. Through the mists of time, Larry Cohen must have heard that complaint in 1985 and decided to give his next monster as much screen time as I could handle.

The only trouble is that the Stuff (rules of grammar: The Stuff = the title of the movie; the Stuff = the slime-like organic substance that is the monster in the movie…before it is put in a trademarked container; The Stuff = the previously mentioned slime after it is packaged; and the stuff = generic miscellaneous material) bends the definition of monster.

The Stuff oozes its way to the Earth’s surface in the movie’s opening scene and a dope sticks his finger in it and eats some. Some reviewers doubt if this would have happened in real life. It’s set in Georgia in the 1980s–that’s exactly what would have happened.

And so, the Stuff becomes The Stuff, replacing ice cream as America’s favorite junk food. Ice cream manufacturers hire a corporate spy to get the dirt on The Stuff, hiring Michael Moriarty. After meeting with the ad exec who brought The Stuff to popularity, he tracks The Stuff to two locations, full of people who have become Stuff-infested zombies called Stuffies.

Moriarty meets Chocolate Chip Charlie, a cookie mogul who lost his company to The Stuff and Jason, a young boy who lost his family after they transformed into Stuffies.

After facing a small ocean of the Stuff, Moriarty recruits a miltia leader to attack the quarry where the Stuff is being mined/extracted. They warn the public who, in non-horror movie fashion, do the smart thing and help destroy The Stuff.

Despite traitorous ice cream execs and Chocolate Chip Charlie turning into a Stuffie and exploding, the world seems to be saved, although The Stuff is still sold like illegal drugs.

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GROSS
BUT
ACCURATE
OBSERVATION
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I will get this out of the way immediately. In its raw form, the Stuff looks like cologulated semen. As monsters go, it’s simultaneously the most disgusting and least elaborate. The Stuff repeatedly sprays out and into people’s mouths, people are constantly eating it and saying how good it tastes, and its advertisements link it to sex.

Aannnddd there’s kids involved.

Did nobody else notice this?

If you can get beyond that, it’s not a terrible movie. Both the script and film footage needed better editing. As with Q the Winged Serpent, Larry Cohen shows the monster to the audience within seconds into the opening shot.

I appreciate it after the excruciatingly pointless long reveals in Man-Thing, The Werewolf of Washington, and Crocodile 2: Death Swamp, but the movie The Stuff could have been trimmed substantially and the beginning could have used a little more exposition (I can’t remember the last time I thought that about a movie).

Also, The Stuff does suffer from kill-the-black-character syndrome like so many 1980s horror movies. On the one hand, Garrett Morris who played Chocolate Chip Charlie has the most memorable death in the movie. Unfortunately, its shortly after Paul Sorvino’s character makes racist remarks which are never addressed by other characters. Compared to multiple scenes of what looks like mobile, carnivorous rivers of semen, it might be easy to overlook.

For its flaws, I’m glad I watched it. If you’re sick of conventional horror, this will show you something different.