The Stuff (1985) Review

"Everybody has to eat shaving cream once in a while."

-Mo Rutherford

The Stuff opens with a couple of miners discovering a strange white substance bubbling up from underground and incidentally discover it's very tasty.  A few months later, the white substance is the most popular dessert in the United State.  It's called "The Stuff" and no one knows what it is exactly.  A competing company hires ex-FBI agent turned industrial saboteur, Mo Rutherford (Michael Moriarty), to look into "The Stuff" and when he digs a little too deep, he finds those who have consumed the dessert start acting strange and try to force others to eat it.  Mo assembles a ragtag group to take down "The Stuff" and the evil behind it.

What Works:

The Stuff is a weird, quirky, little B-movie.  It has an extremely odd tone and there are tons of moments that are simply peculiar.  For the most part, that works in favor of the movie.  It's totally unpredictable and you are forced to just go along for the ride.  It makes the movie fun to watch and very entertaining.   It's a somewhat baffling experience, but it is also an enjoyable one.

The best part of The Stuff is the lead character, Mo Rutherford.  Michael Moriarty gives a bizarre performance with tons of odd line deliveries.  He's got utter confidence in himself and it's impossible to tell what he's going to do next.  He's a perfect fit for the role and extremely entertaining.

The special effects are low budget, but very charming.  There are a lot of miniatures and compositions that I really appreciate.  There was also some really cool gore.  It doesn't always look perfect, but it's solid for this type of movie.  I was expecting The Stuff to have some boring parts, but no, there were a bunch of really fun sequences and they got creative with their limited means.

Finally, I appreciate this movie's elements of satire.  The Stuff isn't just a horror movie or a comedy, it also pokes fun at elements of our society similarly to something like Robocop.  I'm a sucker for satire and while this movie isn't subtle, I appreciate what it's trying to say.

What Sucks:

As I mentioned above, there are plenty of weird, quirky, and simply odd moments in this film.  A lot of them work, but not all of them.  There are plenty of moments that just fall flat.  Plenty of the movie doesn't make sense and I definitely said "WTF" too many times.

The worst part of the film is a character who isn't introduced until the last 30 minutes, Colonel Spears (Paul Sorvino) is a racist creep and straight up sucks to watch.  Now, it's fine to have a character with these negative character traits, but Colonel Spears is sided with the good guys.  He helps save the day.  He doesn't even get killed.  Apart from the fact he has a bunch of armed men willing to follow him to stop "The Stuff", he has no redeeming character traits.  I guess they tried to play his character for laughs, but the jokes didn't work at all.  Everything about this guy is terrible.  He either should have been a bad guy or at least been killed off.

Verdict:

The Stuff is a strange, little B-movie that manages to accomplish a lot with a small budget.  It has a great lead character, some entertaining satire, solid gore, and some charming effects.  There are definitely moments that don't work and one awful character, but, for the most part, The Stuff has got it going on.

 7/10: Good