MOVIE REVIEW- `The Stuff' an addictive, nonsensical horror spoof
The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution - October 29, 1985
Author: RINGEL, ELEANOR, Eleanor Ringel Film Editor: STAFF
"The Stuff" shows us what might've happened if The Blob or the pods from "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" had had an imaginative creative-marketing director.
This ingenius horror -movie spoof is dedicated to the proposition that the American public will swallow anything if it's well-packaged -even an "anything " that wants to swallow them right back.
"The Stuff" is the brainchild of Larry Cohen, who gave us a homicidal infant in "It's Alive" and a winged serpent over Manhattan in "Q." The Stuff itself is some creamy white goop that looks like a cross between Tofutti, milk of magnesia and Stuckey's Divinity. It is the perfect non-food: low calorie, good-tasting and doesn't spot when spilled.
It is also a threat to the future of the ice cream industry, whose top dogs w ant to copy, er, improve on it. To find out The Stuff's secret formula, they hire a seedy industrial spy (Michael Moriarty) whose slow drawl masks some quick wits. "No man is as dumb as I appear to be," he good-naturedly, but pointedly, reminds his new bosses.
Moriarty isn't dumb, and he soon discovers there's more to The Stuff than meets the mouth. Like a certain other white substance, The Stuff turns people into addicts - stuff-heads, so to speak.
"One lick is never enough" goes the cheery jingle devised by The Stuff's advertising director, Andrea Marcovicci. For once, we have truth in advertising (and wit, too - Cohen's sendups of TV spots, featuring everyone from Clara "Where's the Beef?" Peller to Tammy Grimes, are hilarious). One lick and the next day your refrigerator is stuffed with The Stuff and you're talking like a TV commercial yourself.
But . . . are people eating The Stuff or is it eating them?
Moriarty realizes The Stuff must be stopped. He's joined by a properly repent ant Ms. Marcovicci, a cookie king named Chocolate Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris) and a kid from Long Island (Scott Bloom) who turned into a junior Ralph Nader after he saw The Stuff crawling around the family fridge one night.
These three Stuff-busters end up in Georgia, where they enlist the unlikely aid of a paranoid paramilitary fanatic (Paul Sorvino) to destroy The Stuff factory. Sorvino, who's the kind of right-winger who thinks fluoride in our water is a commie plot, also owns a radio station in Atlanta, supposedly located at Fourth and Main. Mr. Cohen needs to brush up on his geography, unless he wants us Southerners to flood his office with mail asking how to find the corner of Peachtree and Broadway i n Manhattan.
Like its title character, "The Stuff" has a tendency to bite off more than it can chew. Cohen overstuffs "The Stuff." It's a horror movie, a horror -movie sp oof, a cautionary tale about corporate greed, a consumer fable proving you can fool some of the people all of the time, and a wickedly funny anti-drug parable. With all that going on and less than 90 minutes to sort everything out, the film can't help but seem a bit cartoonish and one-dimensional.
Still, a surplus of good ideas is certainly preferable to a surfeit of them. "The Stuff" may, at heart, be all stuff and nonsense, but it's the right stuff and the right nonsense.
The Stuff: A horror spoof about a tasty new dessert. Starring Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci and Paul Sorvino. Directed by Larry Cohen. Movie Guide: code rating, R; sex, none; violence, considerable; nudity, none; language, some cursing.
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HORROR -COMEDY 'THE STUFF' JUST OOZES STUPIDITY
San Jose Mercury News (CA) - September 21, 1985
Author: DAVID N. ROSENTHAL, Mercury News Entertainment Writer
FIRST there was "The Right Stuff," about those magnificent men and their flying machines. Now comes "The Stuff," about those magnificent stuffies and their addictive glop. Any resemblance between the two stuffs is purely alphabetical. For the best thing that can be said about just plain "Stuff" is that it isn't as bad as it looks in the ads. There's not much blood and the scariest thing in it is a lava flow of white something-or-other that looks like a cross between melted marshmallows and window caulking.
It's this sticky-sweet substance that plays the title role. Like yogurt, The Stuff comes in brightly colored plastic containers and can be eaten cold, at room temperature or frozen like ice cream. Versatile stuff, this Stuff.
There's only one teensy-weensy little problem with this taste sensation that's sweeping the nation: It's still alive. It seems to multiply at will and take over those who consume it, which seems to be almost everyone.
We don't know why The Stuff does what it does, it just does. And somebody's got to stop it.
Which is where Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris and Paul Sorvino come in. Instead of searching for a better picture to spend their considerable talents on, they go Stuff hunting, spurred on by a little boy (Scott Bloom) who discovers this Stuff isn't right at all.
There are moments approaching humor in this not-so- horrifying flick, such as when Sorvino shoots a Stuffie, who oozes white instead of bleeding red, prompting Sorvino to say, "I kinda like the sight of blood, but this is disgusting."
But even more frequent are dumb moments and dumb dialogue, such as when Moriarty announces he is going to hot-wire a truck and later tells Marcovicci the keys are under the seat.
In the end, "The Stuff" isn't scary enough to be a quality horror film, it isn't funny enough to be a quality spoof and it isn't interesting enough to be much else.
And that, my friends, is definitely the Wrong Stuff.
The Stuff
(star) 1/2
Rated: R ( horror )
Cast: Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Scott Bloom, Paul Sorvino, Danny Aiello, Patrick O'Neal
Director: Larry Cohen
Screenwriter: Larry Cohen
Studio: New World Pictures
At: San Jose Meridian, Sunnyvale 6, Oakridge 6, Saratoga 6, Capitol Square
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