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The Stuff (1985)


Cast:

Michael "I was on Law & Order's first season" Moriarty is David Rutherford
Andrea Marcovicci is Nicole
Garrett "Old School SNL Not Ready For Prime Time Player" Morris is Chocolate Chip Charlie
Scott Bloom is Jason
Paul "Hey, I was on Law & Order's first season a while, too" Sorvino is Colonel Spears
Danny "Hi, I normally play a mobster" Aiello is Vickers


What the box says:

Amalgated Dairies hires David Rutherford, an FBI man trained turned industrial saboteur, to investigate a popular new product called "The Stuff," which is blowing ice-cream sales out of the water. While David travels to the virtual ghost town of Stadler, Virginia where"The Stuff" was tested, 8-year-old Jason discovers the protoplasmic "Stuff" slithering around the refrigerator all by itself! Soon the horrifyingsecret of the "Stuff" is out. It's a living parasite that devours it's host from within. If you eat enough of it, you become one of the living dead. Threatened from every side, David, Jason, and ad executive Nicole, must save the country from consuming any more of this simple, good-tasting, mind-controlling dessert.


Plot:

In a quarry, a night watchman finds some bubbling white goo and tastes it. That’s some mighty fine tasting glop. He convinces a friend to try it. They realize they can sell it to people.

Jason is tossing and turning in his be, goes to the kitchen to get a drink of water. He sees the Stuff moving around on its own in the fridge. Dad gets on to him. The Stuff is back in its container. Jason mentions he saw it move and Dad is angry with him sends him upstairs. Dad eats the carton of Stuff.

Commercial, a celebrity talks about how great the Stuff is.

Various executives from a major ice cream company are meeting. They have no idea what the ingredients for the Stuff are. They plan on hiring former FBI agent, turned industrial saboteur Moe Rutherford to learn about the Stuff. FDA approved the Stuff very quickly and everyone that approved it is out of the country or retired. Moe will uncover the secret of the Stuff, gets his down payment and leaves.

Mom tells her older son to wake Jason up. Jason comes down stairs. Dad chews him out; he’s going to school today. Older brother wants some Stuff for breakfast. Jason warns him not to eat it. The family ignores Jason who knocks the carton on the floor and runs out.

Moe meets with a chemist to learn about the Stuff. FDA is protecting the secret formula for the Stuff. Moe will have to steal the formula.

A photo shoot for the Stuff, Moe poses as an executive for an oil company wanting to buy the ad company Nicole Kendal works at and place her in charge. She developed the initial campaign for the Stuff and even named it. Moe is pouring on the corny charm. Nicole wants an employee to run a background check out Moe.

Grocery store, everyone is buying the Stuff. Jason is walking the aisles, takes a carton of Stuff from a kid eating it. Jason runs through the market randomly destroying displays of the Stuff. A Destruction montage ensues. Picture the part of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, where Veruca Salt, the rich girl, trashes the one room in the factory, like that without the singing. Store employees eventually catch Jason who’s screaming how it will kill them.

Moe posing as a reporter interviews Mr. Vickers, FDA official. Moe asks about the Stuff. Vickers tells him everything about it, even feeds it to his dog. Vickers goes to get some of the non-confidential paperwork on the Stuff. Moe takes it and leaves.

That night, Moe drives by a Stuff stand, loaded at 2:30 in the morning. Later, Vickers is trying to call the police when his dog rips out the phone line. Dog hacks up white goo forcing it into Vickers mouth,


Garfield the Cat makes me sick!!!

Moe heads to the small town where the Stuff was originally tested. Most the people have left. Moe leaves the gas station to check out another car. The gas station attendant runs into the woods for some reason. Suddenly, Kung Fu master Chocolate Chip Charlie attacks Moe. They stop when they realize their on the same side. Charlie lost his company when it was sold behind his back to the Stuff manufacturers, tracked the forwarding address to Stadler.

At the post office, they learn the mail is routed to Middlin, Georgia. Postmaster wants to be left alone, sounds sick. White goo oozes out of his mouth. Moe and Charlie find the Postmaster. They follow the white goo.

Several people possessed by the Stuff (going to call them Stuffers from now on) chase Moe and Charlie. Fight ensues. One punch will cave in a Stuffer’s head. Moe and Charlie get in a boat and escape. The postmaster wakes up afterwards.

Charlie and Moe are in a greasy spoon, that doesn’t carry the Stuff. Moe wants Charlie to go to Washington D.C. to contact an FBI agent. Moe leaves. We see the waitress has a huge stockpile of Stuff.

In the big city, Moe is watched by Stuff street venders like ice cream carts. A Stuff van almost runs over Moe. He meets with the head distributor of the Stuff. The distributor threatens Moe and then offers to buy Moe off as head of security for the Stuff.

Moe meets with Nicole and reveals he’s an industrial saboteur. He takes her to the lab. Moe will go with Nicole to the Stuff factory to get proof. No one will believe him otherwise. He spots a newspaper story about a boy destroying the Stuff in a supermarket.

Another Stuff commercial is on television. Jason is in his room, heads to the kitchen and sees a lot of empty Stuff containers. The rest of the family is chowing down on the Stuff. That’s what’s for dinner. Dad offers him some Stuff. Brother grabs Jason when he tries escaping the house. Parents give him a carton of Stuff and send him to his room until he finishes it.

Going upstairs, Jason empties the Stuff into the toilet and flushes it. The family is basking in awe of the fridge full of the Stuff. Jason fills the empty carton with shaving cream and goes downstairs. Parents see him eating it. Gagging, Jason runs outside Dad realizes it wasn’t the Stuff. They chase him into the night. Moe drives by rescuing the sick to his stomach Jason.

They arrive at the airport, head for Georgia. Jason goes, too. There are a lot of mines around Middlin. Nicole and Moe head to the Stuff factory. Jason is left on the plane. Stuff kills the pilot and Jason escapes.

At the Stuff factory, Nicole and Moe take the tour, while Jason is running through the woods. Nicole and Moe aren’t allowed into the mixing room. Jason finds an abandoned mine and a tanker truck arrives. He hides on top of it before hiding in the tank which is closed.

Moe tells Nicole how the Stuff controls your mind if you eat too much of it. They think Jason is in Savannah where Moe ordered the pilot to take him. In the motel, in bed, another commercial for the Stuff is played. Stuff oozes out of the pillow trying to kill Moe. Nicole sets the Stuff on fire. When a redneck rushes in to attack them, the bed is full of Stuff engulfs the redneck. The room is set on fire. Moe and Nicole escape, hotwiring a truck to go back to the factory.

The tanker truck pulls out; Jason is still trapped in the tanker. Moe and Nicole follow the trucks. The Stuff workers get out the hoses to pump the Stuff from the ground into the tankers. Moe and Nicole spy on them as they do this.

Moe plans on stealing a truck of the Stuff, puts on a Stuff worker’s coveralls. Truck Jason is in is about to be loaded. Nicole will meet Moe later. He starts planting explosives around the quarry.

Moe has snuck among the workers; one is suspicious until Moe knocks him out. A quantity of the Stuff is pumped into Jason’s tanker who tries to keep it from getting him. Moe hears Jason in the tank and steals that truck. He activates his explosives. Workers try to stop Moe from escaping.

Nicole has to fight off a Stuffer; Moe runs the truck over the Stuffer’s legs. Moe gets Jason out of the tank just in time. They all head off in the truck. A cop pulls them over, sees the hose dragging the road.

Cop has them all get out of the truck. Moe mentions that the Stuff is leaking out of the truck. Jason and Nicole head to the pile of it, acting like they’re eating it. They lure the cop to the back of the truck when Moe knocks him out. The plan is to head for a large city, harder for the Stuff to control so many people.

Moe has a better idea, head towards a castle. They are surrounded by an elite force of military men. Moe is here to see Colonel Spears, who he has tapes of from when he worked in the FBI. Moe tells Spears about a dangerous conspiracy that will leave America open to commies. They discuss it in detail. Spears’s forces will attack the plant.

The truck Moe stole pulls up to the factory. Stuff worker shoots the trucker who brought the truck back. Spear’s forces storm the plant. The Stuffers are retreating. Spears and his men enter the plant which is deserted. They find the Stuffers dead. The white goo has left the bodies. Nicole and Jason are going outside, chased by a massive blob of white goo. Nicole and Jason escape the building before the white goo bursts forth. Spears decides to warn the public, now.

As they are flying to one of Spears’s radio stations, Spears wants Nicole to help him improve his image. They arrive at the airport, taking taxis to the radio station. Spears wants to broadcast the message on as many stations as possible.

Nicole starts writing the warning. Charlie storms past the troops. Moe reads what Nicole has written. Charlie wants to help. Spears initially refuses to allow Charlie to speak on his station but allows him to provided he doesn’t say anything liberal or in code. Nicole talks with Charlie who tells her what a body looks like after the Stuff is through with it. Charlie begins convulsing and his jaw distends letting the Stuff leave him, as Jason enters the room.

Moe breaks the glass to the broadcast booth they’re inside. He manages to electrocute the Stuff, getting Nicole and Jason out of the flaming room.

The warning is broadcast as Spears begins telling of the dangers of the Stuff.

Stuff billboards are being burnt. Nicole tells of what happens in the following weeks. The nation rids itself of the Stuff. People have public Stuff burnings. They firebomb Stuff stands and the plant.

Moe watches a broadcast of Nicole’s message. He meets with the Stuff distributor and, the head of the ice cream company that hired Moe is present. They plan to distribute a new version of the Stuff called the Taste, containing only 12% Stuff. Moe has Jason enter carrying a large box. Jason opens it and starts placing Stuff cartons in front of the distributor and ice cream man. Moe forces them to eat the entire case

Moe and Jason leave.

A truck pulls to a stop, black-market Stuff dealing has begun.


What I say:

A movie concerning a killer desert that mentally taking over those who eat it. And only an industrial saboteur and a Colonel and his elite troops are last best hope of the country if not the world. Imagine if the remake of the Blob had commercials trying to sell the Blob and a lot of quirky characters and a lot less Kevin Dillon.

You have to mention that The Stuff’s is a spoof of 50s monster movies and 80s commercialism. One of the commercials has a little old lady demanding “Where’s the Stuff?” parodying the immensely popular “Where’s the Beef?” campaign even better is the fact the little old lady is the one from the “Where’s the Beef” commercials.

The idea that an industrial saboteur is the hero even if he is faking a bad Southern accent is novel at the least. You could almost call Michael Moriarty as one of the Larry Cohen stock cast with as many of his movies he starred in: Q – Winged Serpent, Stuff, Return to Salem’s Lot, and Island of the Alive. At one point, Moe (never thought anyone but a Stooge would be called “Moe”), admits he acts dumb to have people underestimate him.

The Stuff is just white goo. The effects are pretty bad. The picture with the dog in the plot part was probably the silliest effect. You could tell these weren’t state of the art effects in 1985. The Stuff has this TV movie quality about it: the production values and the tame gore which is very unrealistic. I know in the late 80s and early 90s, The Stuff seemed to be played almost as often as C.H.U.D. . Well, C.H.U.D. was sold to TV stations and they were allowed to play it as many times as they wanted to for a flat fee instead of a pay for each time you play it.

The juvenile delinquent Jason knows something is wrong with the Stuff and his family. They try to have the family come across as a happy family from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Well, knowing the title of the movie is The Stuff lets us in on the fact that the Stuff is a danger to everyone. Normally, kids in horror movies are completely annoying in these types of roles. He’s about midway on the annoying kid scale, his destructive rampage in the supermarket, and eating shaving cream to escape his house. But, his screaming at the Stuff while in the tanker truck to attack delivered much annoyness to me and mine.

Paul Sorvino plays the crazed anti-communist Colonel Spears. It’s close to an over the top performance. He just is reveling in such an off-the-wall character. Paul Sorvino for those that don’t know him is normally the generic wise cop or mobster when you need one in a movie. Or, he’s known for another reason: Mira. Mira Sorvino, his uber-hot daughter.

Garrett Morris plays “Chocolate Chip” Charlie. And anytime, they can make a guy called “Chocolate Chip” a Kung Fu master, we should celebrate. He keeps talking about how his hands are deadly weapons. Who would think a cookie mogul is a Kung Fu master? If I knew Peter Jackson saw this movie, I’d almost think that Father McGruder from Dead Alive is based on him. Kung Fu cookie mogul and a Kung Fu Catholic Priest befall terrible fates.

I don’t like trying to overestimate a film. But, the bigger sin is to just say something like ”it sukcs….” and nothing else. This is a corny movie. But, a movie that has a paramilitary group actually on the forces of light gets some points. The ending where people rebel against those who keep selling the Stuff, firebombing the Stuff stores,and the public Stuff burnings. It's corny but, fun if you can just let it ride. You'llbe saying one taste is never enough of that wonderful Duff (was payed by Duffman for it "Oh Yeah!!!)..I mean Stuff.



3 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"I guess we do have to keep the world safe for ice cream."
"No one is as dumb as I look."
"They kill the bad things inside us."
"I just eat shaving cream."
"Are you going to arrest me for indecent exposure?"
"You were worried about the commies putting fluorine in our water system."


Morals of the Story

People eat white goo bubbling straight from the ground without a thought.
Dogs hack up white goo for use to kill their owners.
Colonels live in castles.
Paramilitary groups in full cammo doesn't really bother people.