Scott LeBrun One night, a mysterious white glop materializes from beneath the Earth. Mankind realizes that this Stuff actually tastes pretty damn good, so in record time it's being packaged and sold and marketed as the latest dessert sensation. Michael Moriarty plays David "Moe" Rutherford, an industrial spy hired to get the inside dirt on the Stuff - like what are its actual ingredients? He's accompanied by Nicole (radiant Andrea Marcovicci), the marketing genius who created the advertising campaign, because she's as curious as he is. Rounding out the team of heroes is a young kid named Jason (Scott Bloom), whose conformist family were obsessed with this new "food".Writer & director Larry Cohen is again able to come up with a good idea, if not a great film. His little yarn is both a tribute to classic schlock such as "The Blob" (with much in the way of enjoyably goopy special effects) and a horror / comedy / satire that skewers North American consumerist society. Its themes include the way that products are made (or, in this case, merely collected) and marketed to obedient consumers, and the way that people can become mindlessly addicted to food that is in no way good for them. Overall, "The Stuff" admittedly is never that funny, but some of its moments ARE horrific in a comedic sort of way. It has energy to burn and an excellent forward pace, as well as a fairly good amount of quotable dialogue. "They call me "Moe", because when they give me money, I always want mo'."Moriarty gets to be a little eccentric, if not as utterly crazed as he was in Cohens' "Q". He shows off a likeable, goofy charm, and has fine chemistry with Marcovicci, Garrett Morris (who is amusing as the resentful Chocolate Chip Charlie, whose business was aggressively acquired by Stuff company bigwigs), and young Bloom. The very fine cast of familiar faces also includes Danny Aiello, Patrick O'Neal, Paul Sorvino, Rutanya Alda, and Cohen regular James Dixon. There are some priceless cameos in Stuff commercials; in uncredited bits you can see the likes of Patrick Dempsey, Sorvinos' daughter Mira, and Eric Bogosian, the star of Cohens' previous feature, "Special Effects".Generous use of practical FX and resulting gross-out moments help to make for a reasonably enjoyable movie that wraps up in a trim 87 minutes.Seven out of 10.

Sam Panico Larry Cohen's films contain themes that stay timeless, regardless of when they were released. Take The Stuff for example - consumerism, corporate greed, celebrity culture, junk food - none of the theme in this film have gone away. If anything, they've only increased in importance.The Stuff - a yogurt-like white dessert - is discovered coming out of the ground like black gold to Jed Clampett. It's sweet and addictive and quickly gets sold like ice cream. It's all natural with no calories and incredibly filling, so it helps people lose weight. Of course, sales go through the roof and destroy the ice cream industry. Along with junk food mogul Charles W. "Chocolate Chip Charley" Hobbs, these purveyors of sugar hire David "Mo" Rutherford (Michael Moriarty, who also appears in Cohen's Q) to get to the bottom of The Stuff and then destroy it.The more he learns about the product, the more horrified he becomes. The Stuff is actually a parasite that takes over whoever eats it, taking over their brain and gradually transforming them into zombies as it consumes them from the inside out - the very inverse of how people consume products.A young boy named Jason is learning the same lesson the hard way. It's ruined his family, so he destroys a supermarket display.David also meets Nicole, the ad exec who learns that the campaign that she created for The Stuff has only led to death and destruction. As someone who has worked in the ad industry for over twenty years, the battle between craft and commerce has never been so beautifully illustrated than it is here. The film is packed with fake commercials of celebrities hawking The Stuff, including Wendy's pitchwoman Clara "Where's the beef?" Peller, who yells, "Where's The Stuff?" to Abe Vigoda.Everyone that consumes The Stuff eventually turns into a gooey white substance and those under its grip do everything they can to kill our heroes (Nicole and David become lovers; they rescue Jason just as the police arrest him). The corporation that makes The Stuff claims they are trying to rid the world of hunger, but the possibly extraterrestrial substances is really being created to take over the world.They work together with retired United States Army Col. Malcolm Grommett Spears (a perfectly cast Paul Sorvino, Goodfellas) to destroy the zombies and a lake of The Stuff before sending a civil defense message to the country - the only way to destroy The Stuff is to burn it with fire.David then visits the leader of The Stuff Company, Mr. Fletcher, who reveals that they haven't destroyed all of the ways they can get the product. Now, they're working with the ice cream industry -including Mr. Vickers, who originally hired David - to make The Taste, a product that is 88% ice cream and 12% The Stuff. They believe that it will be much safer and still as addictive. However, David brings in Jason and the two force the CEOs to eat The Stuff at gunpoint. David asks, "Are you eating it or is it eating you?" as the cops arrive to arrest the corporate con men.You know how you should never leave the credits during a Marvel movie? Cohen was again ahead of his time here, as the final crawl also has moments showing smugglers selling The Stuff on the black market and a woman in a bathrobe saying, "Enough is never enough" while holding a container of The Stuff.From its inventive gore and special effects to its wry social commentary, The Stuff is sheer delight. It moves fast, it's packed with action and it has plenty to make you laugh, too. It may make you avoid ice cream for awhile, too.

Paul Magne Haakonsen Personally I found "The Stuff" to be rather long, boring and difficult to sit through. Perhaps that was because it was nothing at all what I had expected it to be like.This horror-comedy means well and seem sort of a spoof on the genre with movies such as "The Blob", but it just doesn't really deliver a powerful enough punch to make a lasting impression. Plus, it in overall just doesn't really have that much appeal - to me, at least - which made it hard to endure.The very first time you see 'the stuff' is at some factory plant of sorts, found on the ground, and who in their right mind would pick up something thick, white, mucous stuff directly pouring out from the ground and start to eat it? It was just a tad too cheesy for my liking.As for the acting in the movie, well, given it is a movie from 1985, then I wasn't overly impressed. It seems clumsy and forced, trying to be too funny, but failing in the progress.There are far better horror-comedies out there, that far outshines "The Stuff". The most impressive thing about "The Stuff" was the amount of familiar faces that actually turned out to be in the movie. Plus they actually did a good job to make the marketing and merchandising of 'the stuff' actually seem real and plausible.But for a movie meant to entertain, I had to seek my entertainment elsewhere, as "The Stuff" just turned out to drag on for far too long and having no real appealing story to tell.

FlashCallahan Industrial spy and former FBI agent David 'Mo' Rutherford is hired by executives of the ice-cream industry to disclose the recipe of the successful yogurt like dessert called the Stuff.Somehow, its consumers become addicted in the product, and competitors want the formula.With Nicole, the head of the Stuff's advertising campaign; and a boy named Jason, who refused to eat it after his family became consumed, Mo tries to prove that the Stuff is a malevolent, possibly sentient, natural substance that is trying to take over the minds of the population of Earth.....So the film is about a pudding that kills people by coming back out of them, okay it's a silly premise, but then it's a silly B-movie which should never ever be taken seriously.But the problem is that it's just not funny enough to stand above other B-movies. There is a random character called Chocolate chip, who turns up every now and again, being loud, and he is there for comic relief, and a great special effect at the end, but not much else.The cast are fine in a 'we know it's a silly movie' and the effects are perfunctory, and it passes the time nice enough, but it just isn't bonkers enough to live up to it's concept.