The Stuff (1985)

June 27, 2018

The Stuff is an in-your-face social critique of the consumerist culture of the 1980s with a handful of action film fight and a touch of gore. It features a very bizarre performance by Michael Moriarty who had just been in the Clint Eastwood western Pale Rider and who would go on to play Harry Potter Sr. (no relation) in Troll. He plays a tough guy private investigator with a distracting southern drawl (straight out of a Tennessee Williams play). Throughout the film, he delivers one-punch knock outs to over a dozen Red Shirts and is able to seduce any women he meets. Basically he's James Bond but instead of Sean Connery or Roger Moore, 007 is played by an out of shape, chubby faced southerner. Despite no one buying him as the hero, he does deliver some memorable and bizarre lines: "Well, everybody has to eat shaving cream one in a while." "No one is as dumb as I appear to be." "The name's Mo Rutherford. They call me that because when people give me money I always want mo'."

Out southern private investigator is joined by Chocolate Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris - SNL), the former owner of a ice cream company who uses karate to fight bad guys and break down doors. Lastly, a military conspiracy theorist who owns his own private army, played by Paul Sorvino (how'd they get Paul Cicero from Goodfellas?). Together this band of weirdos takes down The Stuff company who has been selling a desert product called The Stuff which they syphon out of a lagoon. The Stuff is addicting and after consuming too much of it, it turns you into a zombie. Sometimes you just continue eating it, sometimes you violently attack whomever is around, sometimes you vomit up the stuff and it jumps out the window, and sometimes your head explodes.

The movie at it's core is an attack on the Mall consumerist culture of the 1980s. It really serves as the poor man's They Live: Roddy Piper's acting was a little more subtle than Mortiary's… which says a lot about Mortiary's character. Also, I can buy Roddy Piper and Kieth David as action heros. Michael Mortiary and Garrett Morris? No so much. Anyways... you get the picture. The people in the movie become addicted to The Stuff just like people in the 1980s (and today) are addicted to buying stuff. Get it? Subtle. Also there are a ton of product placements and advertisements which are meant to criticize marketing as a brainwashing tool. There is a great moment where Abe Vigoda appears on a The Stuff commercial. There's another great moment when The Stuff's CEOs, now knowing how dangerous The Stuff is, have a conversation talking about putting less of the stuff in their new product The Taste which would still be addictive but probably wouldn't turn people into zombies... straight out of JR Reynolds and Philip Morris' mouth.

The scifi gore is more funny than scary. They use a lot of forced perspective and models to show The Stuff flooding areas and moving around to find victims. There are a few scenes where the Private Investigator punches people's heads in or punches their jaws off (a side effect of The Stuff is it makes you hollow... another allegory?). One impressive scene has the stuff vomit itself onto a person and drag him over the walls and ceiling. For this scene they used the same room from Nightmare on Elm Street when Johnny Depp's character is turn apart and his blood covers the ceiling. Awesome!

Overall, the movie was fun to goof on, but I'd rather just watch They Live.