Main Cast: Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Paul Sorvino, Scott Bloom, Garrett Morris
Release Year: 1985
Country: US
Run Time: 93 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
When a group of miners discovers a mysterious but delicious white substance bubbling up from the earth, a conglomerate markets the gooey, addictive fluff as a dessert in this tongue-in-cheek horror spoof from former NBC scriptwriter Larry Cohen. When a new product called "The Stuff" begins eating into the market share of traditional frozen desserts, the dairy industry hires former FBI agent Moe Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) to investigate the competition. With the assistance of deposed ice-cream magnate Chocolate Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris), Rutherford discovers that the substance is actually a sentient entity that takes over its victims' minds while eating away at their bodies from the inside. Meanwhile, young Jason (Scott Bloom) realizes that his family's strange behavior has something to do with the dessert product in their refrigerator that refuses to stay in its carton, and he launches a campaign to destroy the threatening confection. Soon Rutherford and Jason must team up with Nicole Kendall (Andrea Marcovicci), The Stuff's unwitting advertising mastermind, and Vietnam vet-turned-militia leader Colonel Spears (Paul Sorvino) to save America from its own sweet tooth. Sorvino and Moriarty would go on to co-star in NBC's hit police procedural, Law & Order. Icy-eyed As the World Turns hunk Brian Bloom appears alongside his brother, Scott Bloom. The Stuff's television connections also extend to cameos from Clara Peller, pitchwoman for the Wendy's "Where's the beef?" campaign, and Abe Vigoda of Barney Miller fame. Actresses Brooke Adams, Tammy Grimes, and Laurene Landon also appear in parodic commercials for the titular dessert. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
The best point of comparison for this low-budget spoof is John Carpenter's They Live, another 1980s horror flick that mixed wit and gore with anti-consumerist ideology. On the surface, The Stuff is just an exploitation flick -- a jumble of The Blob, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Carpenter's remake of The Thing, full of amateurish special effects and hammy performances. But writer/director Larry Cohen actually has a lot on his mind, and it's to his credit that his jabs at everything from Leave It to Beaver-conformity and America's diet obsession to corporate iconography and advertising agency excess are presented so matter-of-factly that you can take 'em or leave 'em. The Stuff isn't exactly subtle, but its sly parody is so unobtrusive, yet pervasive, that viewers can soak it in while still enjoying the film as a no-frills action/adventure flick. The character actors, cult favorites and TV stars past and future who make up the cast, give The Stuff a sort of postmodern zip that only improves with age; even viewers who know nothing about the actors, however, will appreciate Michael Moriarty's tongue-in-cheek gumshoe, Paul Sorvino's over-the-top vet, and the cameo-laden TV-commercial pastiches that lighten the mood. By packing his script with irony and his cast with up-for-it performers, Cohen renders questions of taste and production values refreshingly moot. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Danny Aiello - Vickers; Alexander Scourby - Evans; Russell Nype - Richards; Brooke Adams - Girl in Stuff Commercial; Rutanya Alda - Psychologist; Harry Bellaver - Old Miner; Colette Blonigan - Jason's Mother; Brian Bloom - Jason's Brother; James Dukas - Gas Station Attendant; Tammy Grimes - Herself; Laurene Landon - Guest Star in "Stuff Commercials"; Heidi Miller - Girl in Franchise; John Newton - Howard; Patrick O'Neal - Fletcher; Clara Peller - Old Couple in Stuff Commercial; Edward Power - Executive; Adrianne Sachs - Studio Aide; Abe Vigoda - Old Couple in Stuff Commercial; James Dixon - Postman; Jery Hewitt - State Trooper; Peter Hock - Miner; Gene O'Neill - Scientist; David Snell - Doctor; Ann Dane - Hostess; Cathy Schultz - Waitress; Marilyn Staley - Tour Guide; Beth Teagarden - Investigator; Frank Telfer - Jason's Father; Nick Taylor - Ex-FBI Man; Bobbi Burns - Secretary
Credit
Marleen Marta - Art Director, George Stoll - Art Director, Tim D'Arcy - Costume Designer, Larry Cohen - Director, Jim Danforth - Second Unit Director, Armond Leibowitz - Editor, Anthony Guefen - Composer (Music Score), Dwight Dixon - Composer (Music Score), Harvey Livingston - Makeup, Larry Lurin - Production Designer, Paul Glickman - Cinematographer, Larry Cohen - Producer, Paul Hurta - Producer, Paul Kurta - Producer, Barry Shils - Producer, David Allen - Special Effects, Jim Doyle - Special Effects, Ed French - Special Effects, Steve Neill - Special Effects, Rick Stratton - Special Effects, Bret Culpepper - Special Effects, Larry Cohen - Screenwriter, Jim Danforth - Matte Artist, Jim Danforth - Visual Effects, David Stipes - Visual Effects
The plot, a scathing commentary on consumerism, involves a sticky white glop that is discovered by a man walking about the woods, reminiscent of the opening scene of "The Blob." However, in this case the man eats the substance rather than poking it warily with a stick. Upon tasting it, the man and his friend discover it has a sweet and highly addictive taste. Later, the slime is marketed as the Stuff and sold to the general public in pint (roughly half-liter) containers like ice cream. It is marketed as having no calories, sweet, creamy, and fills you up! The Stuff becomes a nationwide craze and drastically hurts the sales of ice cream. An industrial saboteur, David "Mo" Rutherford (Moriarty), is hired by the leaders of the suffering ice cream industry, as well as a junk foodmogul (Garrett Morris), to find out exactly what the Stuff is and destroy it. His efforts reveal that the craze for the dessert is far more sinister than anyone had thought—the Stuff is actually alive, possibly sentient, and gradually takes over the brain, mutating those who eat it into bizarre zombie-like creatures. A little boy named Jason also discovers the Stuff is alive and sees how it affects his family, and gets arrested for vandalizing a supermarket in trying to smash displays of the Stuff, attracting the attention of Rutherford, who comes to his aid. Rutherford also manages to charm an advertising executive (Marcovicci), who becomes his partner and lover when she sees the effect of the Stuff. The trio infiltrate the distribution operation, which is actually an organized corporate effort to spread the Stuff on the basis of eliminating world hunger, and destroy the lake of Stuff with explosives. Paul Sorvino stars as Colonel Spears, a retired soldier who leads a militia in battling the zombies and transmitting a civil defense message for Americans to break their addiction to the Stuff by destroying it with fire. The Stuff addiction is ended and Rutherford, Jason, and Col. Spears are hailed as national heroes.
Mo then visits the Stuff’s company head, a man named Fletcher. He tells Mo that the destruction of the mine has not hurt his business, since the Stuff seeps out from many places in the ground, but Mo vows to find those places and get rid of them. Vickers brings in Evans, the ice cream mogul he’s now working with (and who originally hired Mo to find out about what the Stuff was), and they tell him they have come up with a new product called "The Taste", which is a mix of ice cream and 12% of the Stuff, enough to make people crave for more without taking over their minds or killing them.
However, Mo then brings in Jason, who is carrying a box, and then he holds the two moguls at gunpoint. The box is full of pint containers of the Stuff, and Mo forces them to eat it all, as punishment for the lives lost to it (including Jason’s family) and for their greed. When they finish, Mo and Jason leave them to the approaching police.
The movie ends with smugglers selling the Stuff on the black market.
Production
Some of the substance props or stand-ins for the real Stuff used in the movie included lots of Häagen-Dazs ice cream, yogurt, and, for one scene involving an enormous avalanche-like effect of Stuff crashing through a wall, fire-extinguishing foam. Other shots, such as the ones of the giant lake of Stuff, required superimposed images and animation.[1]
The scene in the motel where the Stuff comes out of the mattress and pillows and attacks the man on the wall and ceiling was shot in a room that could turn upside down, allowing the Stuff to move up and down the wall. It was exactly the same room used in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) when Johnny Depp's character Glen is sucked into his bed and his blood is regurgitated back out onto the ceiling.[1]
Writer-director Larry Cohen wanted to cast Arsenio Hall as Chocolate Chip Charlie W. Hobbs, since he thought he was not only good but a rising star. However, the execs at New World Pictures wanted someone more recognizable, and thus cast Garrett Morris instead.[2]
