October Movie Challenge: The Stuff (1985)

It tastes great.

It has no calories.

Everyone loves it.

It is also alive.

This is an odd one. It's an obvious dig on 80s consumerism. Its commentary is spot on really. I can't fault it for that. Not quite as good as "Robocop," but still good. But is it good horror?

The Stuff (1985)

Larry Cohen’s 1985 horror-comedy, The Stuff, concerns a new dessert that has become the talk of the nation. It is irresistible. No calories, great taste, and everyone is fond of it. There is only one catch: it is alive.

We start the film with some workers who come across an odd white matter oozing from the ground. One of them, being a man of reason in the face of an unknown substance, decides to put it in his mouth. Because that is what you do. 

Before you know it, the material is on shelves across the country under the name "The Stuff." As a kind of miracle confection, it is putting ice cream makers out of work, leaving other food companies in a tizzy. Instead of looking into what their rival is up to, they put money in the pocket of David "Mo" Rutherford a former FBI agent, now an industrial spy, to see how the product is made.

Mo gets to the bottom of it. The Stuff is not something you should be eating. In fact, it is eating us.

Cohen has written and directed a film that is as much a conspiracy thriller and body horror as it is a sci-fi monster piece. It is an unapologetic satire of the way we in America will consume anything if it is well packaged and marketed. Roger Ebert saw the ambition in it, though he felt the satire had more impact than the scares. It was even reviewed in White Dwarf #77. 

You could not ask for a better fit than Michael Moriarty for this role. His Mo Rutherford is an odd one, with a certain relaxed strangeness about him. When he tells you he goes by Mo because he is always after "Mo'" whenever someone hands him cash, that is explanation enough. Contrast this with his turn in Dark Tower. 

 "No one is as dumb as I appear to be." - David "Mo" Rutherford

He is no hero set on saving the world. He is an employee of competing interests who stumbles into an apocalypse because he was paid to check out a dessert. In fact, he is kind of a jerk. 

He ends up with Nicole, an ad exec, and a boy named Jason. Jason has seen The Stuff moving in the fridge and knows there is trouble. But then again, his family is very partial to it and has been putting away large amounts of late, acting rather peculiar. Jason can tell people are being changed by it, but the adults will have none of it. They never do in these films. Par for the course in the 1980s really.

As for the Stuff itself, think of it as an alien take on marshmallow creme or yogurt. It has a mind of its own, will crawl up a wall, and pour from its container to finish off its host. Some of the effects are fine; at times, it looks like shaving cream forced through a hole in the plaster. I mean, what can you expect?

The body-horror is where the movie excels. You watch as The Stuff pours out of people who split open, leaving nothing but an empty shell. It does not merely have control over you; it replaces you.

The Stuff is somewhere between "The Blob" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," with catchy television commercials playing continuously in the background.  In a way those are the best joke in the film. Cohen knew he did not need the monster in pursuit if he could get advertising that made you want to put it in your mouth. There is a marketing department for the monster, one with a colorful logo to put on The Stuff. You will see celebrity endorsements, health claims, product placement, and some rather catchy commercials. Competitors are even at work trying to ape its success. It is all extraordinarily 1985. 

One can almost see parallels to New Coke here. 

The satire is not in the least bit subtle. Cohen is plainly enjoying himself as he takes on the excesses of consumer culture and corporate America. Not only that, he gets the "Where's the Beef" woman, Clara Peller, to ask none other than Abe Vigoda, "Where's the Stuff?"

Then the heroes realize that The Stuff is making its way across the country at a speed no one can contain. Who is left to save America? Paul Sorvino and his private militia, because why not. Sorvino is in fine form as Colonel Malcolm Grommett Spears, a right-wing military type who hears Mo’s tall tale and figures this is the kind of problem he has been waiting for his whole life.

As Cohen transitions from consumer satire to paramilitary action in the final act, things get more and more ridiculous. But they should. This is a film where killer yogurt is in charge of America; restraint would be uncalled for, really.

Released in U.S. theaters in June 1985 alongside a cast featuring Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Danny Aiello, Patrick O’Neal, and a cameo from young Mira Sorvino, I find The Stuff to be better for its ideas than its execution. The story has a way of wandering (a lot); the tone constantly oscillates between broad comedy and real horror, and some of the effects are hit-or-miss. I also can't help but think that the version I am watching (on Tubi) has been hacked up. Or maybe it was really this disjointed. Hard to say.

Yet Cohen makes his point. The true monster is not The Stuff but the system that sees an unknown organism coming up from the ground and wants to know how to put a price on it and whether they can make a commercial for it.

It is the commentary that really saves this movie for me. I also love the idea that in the 1980s the horror comes to you in your home, and sometimes you invite it in.

I actually liked this one more than I expected. Mostly for how weird it is. 

Jackson, IL Connections

This is an easy one to put together.

Something new has taken hold in Jackson. A diet drink, frozen yogurt, or some protein snack is being given away for free at the public high school. It has everyone in town raving about it. Larina won’t touch it, finds the smell off. Faye will have none of it precisely because of the crowd. Stephanie has half of one before she gets a bad feeling about it. Andy puts down three. Val has eaten an entire box.

And then you notice people are not quite themselves.

Make sure the threat seems absurd at first. There is no haunted house or demon here, just an item on the grocery shelf. The characters may find out it is a parasitic ooze or an alchemical experiment, or something that has been under Illinois for eons. And the company behind it might be completely in the dark. Which is frankly worse. 

There is a line at the end of the movie where the execs talk about the new product "The Taste" tested in a "small Illinois town." Kinda writes itself, doesn't it. 

In an Occult D&D campaign, let us say it is an intelligent slime from the caverns below, marketed as a wonder food that cures fatigue and restores your hit points while tasting good. Every portion also allows the thing inside you to grow. In time, it will no longer need you and start wearing your body like a skin suit. Honestly, this might be the better idea. 

The Stuff is gross, funny, and messy, but far too clever in places for a movie about a dessert that kills, and in others not clever enough. It offers a nice 1980s horror lesson: the monster doesn't need to find its way into your home. It can simply wait for you to purchase it.

Ok. Not even halfway through and I am dragging. This was a lot easier 10 years ago. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
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