Disc Reviews

The Stuff Blu-ray Review

stffwA couple of years before The Stuff was made a completely left field sequel to the Halloween franchise called Halloween III: Season of the Witch was released which merely exploited the popuar success of the Halloween slashers. Halloween III was about mass media and how it could turn an entire TV audience into mass killers on Halloween Eve. Larry Cohen’s The Stuff expands on this in its jokey exploration of killer consumerism.

The ‘stuff’ in question is an apparent gooey yogurt like ice-cream that comes up organically from below the earth. It doesn’t take long before a company exploits this tasty organic goo and turn it into a creamy ice-cream. It transpires that it has very addictive benefits to the consumer. The Stuff then proceeds to follow a few protagonists – attractive Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci) who is partly responsible for getting the stuff sold, brash southerner Mo (Michael Moriarty) and young 12-year-old Jason (Scott Bloom) whose parents and brother have already become addicted and in Jason’s words “sound like a commercial” when talking about the stuff, with the mother promoting it’s slimming benefits. In a rage Jason goes to the supermarket and starts trashing all the neatly stacked tubs of The Stuff. He gets together with the other protagonists and realize that the Stuff has the capability to ooze and kill and turn its victims into slobbering exploding zombies.

Being that this is a Larry Cohen film the viewer can expect lots in the way of horror and laughs in equal measure. Cohen, who had made his name with the original It’s Alive (1973) about a baby that is actually a flesh eating monster takes on a new twist in the horror film with The Stuff. Cohen comes from the Roger Cormon stable of cheap low budget horror films that refuse to take themselves seriously. The Stuff was marketed as a gross out horror film with lots of prosthetic effects and laughs. According to the extensive documentary accompanying the film (as is typical of Arrow releases) Cohen was quite a hard driving task master as a filmmaker to get the results he wanted – although the end result doesn’t quite look like that. Released as it is on the Arrow label it is up to the viewer to decide whether this is a classic or a cult classic film or just a good example of mid-1980s gross out horror made pre-CGI with some very obvious prosthetics, never better played out than when Garrett Morris playing a character and Atlanta radio DJ called ‘Chocolate Chip’ Charlie Hobbs head explodes and oozes ‘stuff’ in the films climax. Added to the mix a host of wonderful support performances are provided by Danny Aiello and pre-Goodfellas Paul Sorvino as well as regular corporate villain Patrick O’Neal but really it is the performances of Sorvino and Moriarty who steal the film.

The Stuff is a very silly film indeed with a killer yoghurt that attacks indiscriminately with some decidedly dodgy acting and risible effects with an effect moment of goo oozing up the wall (actually the revolving room that was used in A Nightmare on Elm Street the previous year). It’s easy for this film to get lost amongst all the myriad of other bad horror films made through this period but with Cohen one can always expect a quirky take on the genre. What does set this film aside from its contemporaries is its clear satirical commentary and attack on consumerism. This runs right the way through the film and never lets up from the attack on the supermarket to the Stuff fast food stop blowing up right next door to a McDonalds to the myriad of adverts especially shot by Cohen for the film. But again it is the viewer who will decide whether this is a campy cult classic or merely just another bad B horror film from the height of the video age.

Chris Hick

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