BOP | Cinema Parrot Disco

The Stuff (1985)

Directed & Written by Larry Cohen

Starring: Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Paul Sorvino, Scott Bloom, Brian Bloom, Danny Aiello, Patrick O’Neal

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
A delicious, mysterious goo that oozes from the earth is marketed as the newest dessert sensation, but the tasty treat rots more than teeth when zombie-like snackers who only want to consume more of the strange substance at any cost begin infesting the world.

My Opinion:

SPOILERS. I’m gonna post spoiler-y photos because I have to. They’re hilarious.

This movie popped up on Amazon Prime recently and I was excited because I’ve been wanting to see it. Mainly because it’s on Arrow Video (look at that cool DVD cover at the top of this post!). I usually like cult Arrow Video shit. The poster is cool too. Looks like the kind of cheesy Eighties horror comedy shit that I love! Even the logo they use to market this “mysterious goo” in the movie is cool. Look at this! I’d buy this if it was a real product:

Well, the movie certainly doesn’t live up to its cool poster or fake product marketing. It’s not even “so bad it’s good”, which I was hoping for. It’s just bad. Bad and boring.

What can I say about this?! It’s one of those movies I ended up not really paying any attention to while I fucked around on my phone. I thought it might be a little bit body horror but the “gore” was really cheesy & low budget. At one point a guy got punched in the face and his face sort of caved in & broke apart and it looked dodgy as hell. Then another guy’s head basically blew up but not in a super cool Scanners kind of way – more in a claymation Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer kind of way (I love that filthy song). This movie might have worked as a serious David Cronenberg-style body horror. But nope.

“Open up your fruit cage…”

Then I thought it might be a horror comedy. But then there was no comedy (at least, I think not any intentional comedy). So… Nope again!

Then I thought it was maybe a clever social commentary, like Society or the 1978 masterpiece Dawn Of The Dead. Nope! Although I think it may have been trying to be this; It just did a piss poor job and the story was kind of incoherent.

Not a body horror. Not a horror comedy. Not a social commentary. Not some great “cult classic” like I was hoping. What a disappointment. Hell, even looking at these photos now I’m thinking “I totally want to see this movie! It looks awesomebad!“. Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe it IS so bad it’s good?! Look at this, though – How dodgy-looking is this?!:

The most entertaining thing to come out of this was seeing Brian Bloom again, who I completely forgot existed. When I was 12/13 and buying girly teen magazines, they always had posters of him since he was this blue-eyed heartthrob. I had no idea what the fuck he was even in. There were several obscure actors always in girly 80s teen magazines so my mind wandered during this boring movie and I started trying to remember the more obscure ones (not the obvious ones like Johnny Depp and The Two Coreys and Kirk Cameron. Ha!). Let’s see… Andre Gower! Ryan Lambert! Brian Bloom! Who the fuck were they?! No idea. But they were briefly on my bedroom walls in the Eighties. And I’ve once again totally dated myself. God I’m old. Thanks, The Stuff! You were boring AND you reminded me that I’m fucking old!

My Rating: 5/10

*Okay, I’m a liar. I admit that I of course remember that Andre & Ryan were in The Monster Squad in 1987. Andre was my biggest crush of these three. And all three are still totally cute in the recent photos I found. Especially Andre. Cutie. Not that I went Googling him…

Gimme An ‘F’ (1984)
aka T & A Academy 2
aka Cheerballs

Directed by Paul Justman

Starring: Stephen Shellen, Mark Keyloun, Jennifer Cooke, Lisa Wilcox, Beth Miller, Daphne Ashbrook, John Karlen

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
Can a squad of misfit cheerleaders with an over-age trainer possibly win the big cheerleading competition? Looked down upon by the other teams, it will be difficult. Their lack of skill and talent make it even harder.

My Opinion:

This cheesy 80’s cheerleading sex comedy is my dirty little 13-year-old secret. I watched this so damn much at that age and for years I’ve been desperate to own it in some way but it was quite obscure & I was never able to find a copy. Well, this being 2015 and not 1984, it’s made its way to YouTube so I watched it for the first time in years a few months ago. Hilarious!!! It’s so damn bad. I love it.

Here’s the story: When I was 13 (actually, I was possibly only 12), I got a regular job babysitting a boy of about eight. This was back in small-town American Eighties when that was common – the thought of leaving my kid at home alone with some idiot 12-year-old nowadays seems freaking insane! Anyway, I was lucky as the kid was a real sweetheart. We’d usually have some supper & watch a kids’ movie together then he’d go straight to bed with zero fuss. That kid was awesome. What was even more awesome, though, was the collection of slightly dirty movies that his parents had & that I would then spend all night watching until they came home drunk at about 2:00 in the morning & paid me way too much because they were all drunk & happy. They had a collection of videotapes full of stuff they’d obviously recorded off the one & only movie channel we could get in our town (Showtime, if I remember correctly. We didn’t have it. I wanted it).

One movie they had that I watched a few times was the Brian De Palma film Body Double, which I remember nothing about now – I should track that one down too! Gimme An ‘F’ was the one for me, though. Actually, I think it was on the same tape as Body Double – I’m surprised I didn’t wear that tape out. So I’d sit there with my shoebox full of bracelet-making supplies and make friendship bracelets all night while watching a bunch of horny cheerleaders. Oh, I’d also bring a few teen magazines with me, too – usually Sassy or BOP.

Ahh, the good old days! Sorry – I suppose I should stop reminiscing & just talk about Gimme An ‘F’ (also apparently called T & A Academy 2 or Cheerballs. Seriously? Cheerballs?!?!). Anyway, this Oscar-worthy screenplay involves a group of sweet, innocent, virginal cheerleaders called the Moline Ducks and they totally suck (at cheerleading). They go to a cheerleading camp in a place called Beaver View (haha – very funny) where they are trained by twentysomething professional cheerleaders (one being a hot male cheerleader). We have several squads but the important ones are: The Falcons, who are the best & whose captain is an ice-cold bitch…

The Demons, who are a squad of skanky sluts…

And, of course, the sweet little Moline Ducks, who don’t have a hope in hell of winning the competition at the end…

The Ducks embarrass themselves when the squads all do a cheer to determine which professional will train them. Luckily, hunky male cheerleader is there to cheer up our main Duck after her appalling performance.

She soon falls for hot, older cheerleading dude and blah blah blah virgin and blah blah blah sexual tension followed by blah blah blah sexual awakening. I’m not here to tell anyone to watch this. Don’t! It’s so damn cheesy & soooooo 1984 and watching it now, as an adult, I’m not sure what I saw in it.

Okay, screw it – I’m lying. I know exactly what I saw in it. Roscoe! Yeah, that guy in the above picture. I’ve never been the type of girl to go for the usual type of boy. Maybe this movie is to blame for that?! Anyway, the handsome cheerleader did nothing for me. No thanks! I had a massive crush on the wild & wacky Roscoe, who was another one of the trainers. Roscoe has a big boner for the ice-queen captain of the evil Falcons squad & does all he can to win her heart (well, I don’t think it’s her heart that he wants…). Anyway, his final effort is to put on that weird ass Mad Max type outfit up there and to spit out some (fake?) blood as the girl goes past. Honestly, that scene was hot. This finally turns her on & she licks it off his face.

Then they go behind the bushes & you see their clothes go flying in the air while she goes “Gimme an F! Gimme a U!” and I was always like “U? That’s not how you start to spell Falcons…“. Lol. Unfortunately, no guy ever put on Mad Max gear & spit out fake blood for me. (It totally would have worked) 😉

The filthiest this movie got was when one of the professional cheerleaders had sex with the owner of the Beaver View camp (the dude who was Lacey’s husband in Cagney & Lacey). Anyway, this is the closest we get to seeing boobs. Check out those patriotic nipples!

For reasons too boring to explain, handsome male cheerleader bets Lacey’s husband that he can train The Ducks to beat The Falcons in the competition. And (SPOILER, not that it matters…), The Ducks do well after sexing it up & doing a dirty routine thanks to our main sweet blonde girl’s sexual awakening.

Well, you get the idea. I have to say the images make the movie look dirtier than it is. Handsome cheerleader decided to not take advantage of the innocent Ducks girl. But he did do a sexy underwear dance in the steamy shower room for her. It’s absolutely hilarious. Watch it! I BEG YOU. That shit is funny. I’ll put the clip at the end. GOD I love the Eighties!

I’ll shut up now. I suppose I have to give this a rating but how do I rate a movie that I know is awful yet I have really fond memories of it? Yes, I’ve watched this once again while writing this & I do still like it. I was really upset when I lost that babysitting job because the family moved away to another town, removing my ability to ever watch Gimme An ‘F’ again (until now). I had to make do with my friend’s stash of saucy movies that she recorded late at night when her parents were asleep. But all she had was About Last Night… & Bolero – they were never as special to me as Gimme An ‘F’.

My Rating: 7/10

THE UNDERWEAR DANCE. Please watch this. Please! I laughed my ass off watching this again as an adult.