Shudder Saturday: The Stuff (1985)

This is the second film in as many days that I have revisited with a very different "head on my shoulders". I first saw The Stuff when I was about 12 years old. It was a horror (apparently) that I'd already heard plenty about, with most people being interested in it due to one fun scene occurring during the final act, and I wasn't disappointed when I finally got to see it. It had the strangeness, it had the gloopy moments, and it had that fun scene as a highlight. AND I wasn't too scared by the time the end credits rolled. In fact, I don't think I was scared at all.

What I can see nowadays is that The Stuff is a damn fine satire, something that would be obvious to many viewers but wasn't obvious to 12-year-old me. It's a film about whatever makes the special sauce so special. The trademarked recipes of Coca Cola and those KFC flavours? The Stuff highlights the dangers of not knowing exactly what we're eating . . . especially when it is something that could also be eating us.

Things get started quite quickly, when a group of workers discover a white substance seeping out of the ground. It's sweet, it's addictive, it's soon packaged up and being sold to every consumer as The Stuff, a fine new product with no artificial ingredients and no calories. But it's not as good as it might first appear. It might even be alive, which alarms a young boy (Jason, played by Scott Bloom) when he sees it move. He's not the only one who becomes aware of the sentient nature of The Stuff. There's also David 'Mo' Rutherford (Michael Moriarty), an ex-FBI agent now working on his own, and currently hired by businessmen who want to know more about the sensation that is affecting their own businesses.

Written and directed by the talented Larry Cohen, The Stuff has just the right mix of comedy and thrills to hold up as a fun bit of entertainment. It might not be as scary or gross as it could be, with the horror coming more from the idea than the effects on display, but it has a couple of really good set-pieces (one involving Jason hiding inside a tanker) and is a lot smarter than some might expect, although fans of Cohen should always know that he likes to deliver a decent amount of subtext and thought-provocation with his thrills.

Moriarty is great in the role of Mo, especially in the times when he explains why he goes by that name (altering it slightly, depending on who he is speaking to), and Bloom is very good as the teenager lashing out at something without any idea of how to properly deal with the situation. Andrea Marcovicci is the main female, an advertising executive who sees the error of her ways, and she does equally good work, and you get Garrett Morris giving a memorable turn as 'Chocolate Chip' Charlie, as well as small roles for Danny Aiello and Paul Sorvino.

Time has been kind to The Stuff, perhaps because viewers can now approach it as the satire it is rather than the horror it was marketed as, and I think it's one well worth revisiting, or checking out for the first time. It may even become one you go back to often. Because, as the advert says, enough is never enough.

7/10

You can try to get enough of The Stuff here.
Americans can have their fill here.