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…
Cinema Parrot Disco 