The Stuff (1985) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 7

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Love the way you turn me on. You got the right stuff, baby.

The capitalism in the 1980s was so crazy that multiple genre films satirized the age of consumerism. The Stuff is one of those films that never asks you to take itself seriously, but instead wants to point out the hypocrisy of the culture. Once you pop, you can’t stop! Oops, wrong slogan.

Before Viewing

A commercial advert opens this trailer before being interrupted by a news program warning that the world is under attack by an alien entity disguised as a popular food treat. This white, goopy liquid comes alive and consumes those who are consuming it. Enough is never enough when you’ve got The Stuff.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

A worker at a Georgia quarry discovers a white, creamy substance oozing out of the ground. His first thought is to taste it, and he realizes it’s delicious. The yogurt-like material is marketed as The Stuff through billboards, radio jingles, and television ads. Young Jason (Scott Bloom) goes to the fridge one night and is shocked to see The Stuff oozing back into its container. However, no one believes him. Industrial spy David “Moe” Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) is hired by the board of Chocolate Chip Charlie’s cookies to infiltrate their competition and discover what’s in The Stuff. Moe begins with Nicole Kendall (Andrea Marcovicci), the advertising executive behind the commercials for the delicious treat. He hires her to help him, and the two hit it off.

Believing that The Stuff is dangerous, Jason destroys several displays of the product in the market before being grabbed by employees and arrested. Moe interviews Vickers (Danny Aiello), an executive at the FDA, about his approval process. He admits that they couldn’t find anything wrong with the foodstuff, so they allowed it to go to market. Moe notices the man seems afraid of his dog. Later that evening, the dog regurgitates some Stuff and attacks Vickers, killing him. Moe’s investigation leads him to Adler, Virginia, where The Stuff was test-marketed, and he finds only two people living in the entire small town.

In town, Moe meets up with Charles Hobbs (Garrett Morris), aka Chocolate Chip Charlie, who is investigating how he was ousted from his company by a bunch of old white guys. They discover that all the mail in town is being forwarded to Midland, Georgia. The postal worker takes off and collapses with gallons of Stuff flowing out of his mouth. Other men chase Moe and Charlie, but they safely make it to a small diner where Moe suggests Charlie visit the FBI. Back in New York City, Moe is nearly run over by a mobile Stuff van. He talks with the owner of the company, Fletcher (Patrick O’Neal), who scoffs at the thought that he consumes his own product. Moe sees a news story on Jason and stops by his house, saving him from his parents and brother, who have become addicted to The Stuff, eating it solely.

Moe, Nicole, and Jason fly to Georgia, where Moe and Nicole will tour the Stuff factory under the guise of scouting new commercials. Jason stays on the small plane, but is chased off when a company representative kills the pilot and releases a batch of Stuff onto the plane. Jason finds his way into the Fletcher Mines, but becomes trapped in a tanker truck sent to pick up more Stuff. Believing Jason to be safe, Moe and Nicole check into a hotel where they are attacked by a pillow loaded with The Stuff. It covers the wall, nearly killing Moe. Nicole lights it on fire, revealing its weakness. They steal a pickup and head to the quarry to see a pool of The Stuff being sucked into tanker trucks for delivery. The semi-sentient goop wants to go on the trip.

Moe saves Jason from being consumed by The Stuff, and they all pay a visit to a nearby castle where Colonel Spears (Paul Sorvino) is holed up. Moe convinces Spears that America is under attack by Commies who have infiltrated from within. They check out the plant that produces The Stuff and are attacked by gallons of the white goopy treat. Realizing the threat, they head to a local radio station (owned by the Colonel) and prepare a broadcast to warn the public. Charlie returns to help, but soon attacks Nicole, having been infected by The Stuff.

The announcement goes out to the country, and people believe it. They begin burning containers of The Stuff and blowing up Stuff stores and the Georgia plant. Moe and Jason visit Fletcher and Mr Evans (Alexander Scourby), one of the men who originally hired Moe. They are told that a new version of The Stuff, to be marketed as The Taste, will soon be available. It’s only 12% The Stuff, and will be safer. Moe says that’s not good enough and forces them to consume an entire case of The Stuff as the police arrive. The final shot shows a car pulling up along a dark sidewalk, and the driver selling a case of black market Stuff to another passerby.

“Are you eatin’ it? Or is it eatin’ you?” – Moe Rutherford

The Stuff is not your average horror film, and may not even be considered horror by some viewers. Instead, it’s a strong satire on the marketing and consumption of products in the mid-1980s, spoofing both health food and media trends. It creates a product, marketed under the ubiquitous name of The Stuff, which acts as a stand-in for any and all kinds of goods. In the film, The Stuff is more like yogurt or some other popular dessert, low in calories, and utterly addictive. It is marketed in excess, “enough is never enough,” says one of the taglines. The demand never outweighs the supply, because this goop keeps emerging from the ground. But the owners of the corporations, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Evans, only see profit. There’s nothing they have to do except extract The Stuff, put it in packaging, and ship it to stores. From there, it’s all easy money. And, of course, they never consume their own product as Mr. Fisher says. This is like a drug dealer not getting hooked on their product. The in-film marketing of The Stuff presents several commercials, with some recognizable faces, including Clara Peller, an older actress famous in the 80s for her commercials for Wendy’s Hamburgers, where she proclaims, “Where’s the beef?” In the film, she asks, “Where’s the Stuff?” These close-to-reality commercials depict the way that a harmful product can be sold to consumers with sex, humor, and flash–just like many other products in real life. Films such as They Live (1988) and Robocop (1987) would show additional satirical marketing techniques used to make the public buy into certain trends, or outrageous products, while Halloween III: Season of the Witch attempts to market evil masks to kids for part of a satanic ritual.

Right from the start of the film, the audience understands that The Stuff is not good for people. Honestly, who thinks that they should ingest something that comes bubbling up from underground? Even if it does look like Cool Whip? Immediately thereafter, the film jumps ahead with Jason seeing the white goop crawl back into its container. It’s already been “tested” and distributed, and is popular enough to be in an average family’s refrigerator, which reminds everyone, buyer beware! Additional clues lead to the audience guessing the addictive nature of the substance, such as Mom talking like she’s in a commercial and various people having stockpiles of The Stuff around their houses. These aspects make it seem more like a drug than a food substance. But even food can work in this way, whether it’s ice cream, chips, or something else. Addictions and cravings are like that, and are not always controllable, which is why they can be dangerous.

The Stuff owes much of its horror DNA to The Blob but also partly to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (or its remake). In the same way that the Blob has a rudimentary ability to move and consume the bodies it encounters, so too does The Stuff. Small containers of it can move, and larger collections of it have some other level of sentience, sometimes being able to fling pieces of itself at the humans. There is some inconsistency with the nature of the goop. Early in the film, it’s perfectly okay for people to touch The Stuff and to consume it in small amounts. Based on Jason’s family, it takes consuming mass quantities in order to render the mind-control of The Stuff active. Later, it seems as if eating a little bit of it becomes dangerous. And then ultimately touching The Stuff becomes dangerous, not in the acidic way that The Blob might dissolve you, but perhaps because the large amount of The Stuff could actually pull someone into it, drowning them in Stuff. Luckily, Moe and Nicole realize that fire can damage or hurt The Stuff, just as cold can stop the Blob. Body Snatchers plays into the film with the inability to tell who may be affected by The Stuff just by looking at them. There’s no immediate zombie-like quality that can show if someone has become a Stuffie, as the film calls them. It plays on the paranoia that Jason feels both for his parents (and others) not believing his story about the danger (see also Invaders from Mars for adults not believing kids during an alien invasion), but also having loved ones attack you. This is mostly where the horror exists in the film, because, let’s face it, The Stuff glooping along the ground is more comical than terrifying.

Director Larry Cohen assembled an eclectic mix of talent for this film. Cohen was no stranger to lower-budget horror films, having written and directed titles such as It’s Alive (1974) and the sequel It Lives Again (1978), along with questionable comedy Full Moon High (1981), where a High School football player becomes a werewolf. This was four years before Teen Wolf became a sensation. Cohen also wrote and directed Q (sometimes subtitled as The Winged Serpent, so audiences wouldn’t think this is James Bond spin-off), which also starred Michael Moriarty. Moriarty showed up in a lot of lower-budget horror films in the 80s, including reteaming with Cohen on Return to Salem’s Lot and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive, and the wickedly awful Troll, before becoming famous in the TV series Law & Order. Paul Sorvino had a series of smaller roles in the 80s as well, before becoming more popular in 1990 with both Dick Tracy and Goodfellas, and even Law & Order as well. His daughter, Mira, has a small uncredited role in the film as a factory worker, but I was unable to spot her. Danny Aiello, another Italian American actor, also had a number of smaller roles around this time before becoming more widely known for his work in Moonstruck and Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. Finally, Garrett Morris was popularly known for his work on Saturday Night Live, but never achieved that level of success again, appearing in many lower-budget films such as this.

The Stuff appears to have a mostly happy ending with the public actually listening to the odd radio report about the deadly dessert and then choosing to dump their stash, some presumably having a harder time than others. Some people take this to comical levels as they blow up a Stuff franchise located between a McDonald’s and a Burger King. But the final moment showing a black market van selling off some cases of The Stuff reminds audiences that it’s not really over (and there could be a sequel, which there wasn’t). But even without that darker coda, The Stuff would keep bubbling out of the ground as Mr. Fletcher had told Moe and Jason. They were ready to rebrand The Stuff as The Taste, using only 12% of the garbage goop to keep people from being controlled (but still possibly enough to drive the addiction). As consumers, we need to remember that The Stuff never dies, it just ends up becoming something else forever and ever.

Thanks for reading this review of The Stuff, which celebrates its 40th Anniversary this year. It is the middle of the middle film in a week of anniversary films, which began with the 100th Anniversary of The Phantom of the Opera and was followed by the 50th Anniversary of The Devil’s Rain. Stay tuned for more anniversary horrors over the rest of this week on 31 Days of Horror.

Assorted Musings

• Chocolate Chip Charlie appears to be a spoof on Famous Amos, a real-life black entrepreneur who started his own chocolate chip cookie company in Los Angeles in 1975.
• The Agent at the FBI whom Moe suggests Charlie contact is named Frank Herbert, most likely a reference to the Dune novelist of the same name.