The Stuff

From the pen of Larry Cohen (Q, The Winged Serpent) comes perhaps the most bizarre film of the 80's, unless of course you saw 'TerrorVision'.

Harking back to the days of throwaway 50's sci-fi flicks like 'The Blob' and 'Invaders From Mars,' the premise here is that a sweet white goo erupts from the earth and is discovered by a group of miners.

Seeing as it tastes pretty good, the product is approved and mass marketed to American consumers.

With its appealing tri-colour packaging and generic new moniker 'The Stuff' - the American public begin to devour the dessert in a manic fashion. As Brooke Adams tells us, in a mock commercial: "Enough is never enough."

Being the fastest selling new product on the market, Industrial espionage expert David 'Mo' Rutherford (Michael Moriarty) a laconic Texan with a deceptive wit is hired by rival ice cream companies to investigate the ingredients. It has been pushed through FDA approval without a hitch and most of the people involved seemed to have vanished.

We soon realise that The Stuff is a sentient living organism that takes over the brains of those who eat it, turning them into zombies. Suburbanite kid Jason finds himself eating shaving foam to assuage his family's unsettling insistence that he join them in consuming the vile substance. It is up to Mo (people call him 'Mo' because he always wants mo' - yes, I know, *cringe*) to stop the growing lust for the mind altering dessert.

On the adventure, Mo comes across a racist Militia leader (Paul Sorvino), Chocolate-Chip Charlie (Garrett Morris) and a Stuff-addicted FDA stooge (Danny Aiello). If it sounds amazing that actors of this caliber, including two serious mainstays of TV's 'Law and Order' are in this film, then be amazed!

Mo and Jason break into the hi-tech plant mining The Stuff to stop the operation which is ravaging the minds of Americans. But will this product continue under another name?