The Stuff
directed by Larry Cohen
starring Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, and Garrett Morris
Arrow Films
Zombies, vampires, space aliens, and mutants from the sewers – all common horror tropes, tropes done to the point where schismatic religions arise over sparkly vampires or slow walkers or android morality. It takes real cleverness to come up with a new, undead threat, and here Larry Cohen applies his extensive low budget expertise to reveal the dark side of ice cream.
They just call it “The Stuff” but people love it, its available everywhere and competing corporations just can’t shake the formula loose. They bring in slow talking David “Mo” Rutherford (Marcovicci) as a high-priced industrial spy; he explains his nickname with “They call me “Mo” because I always want “Mo” money.” Clever. As he digs into the Stuff operation he teams up with the very funny ‘Chocolate Chip’ Charlie W. Hobbs (Garrett Morris) and a cute kid (Scott Bloom). The Stuff is coming out of a suspicious looking factory, and the last addition to Mo’s team is the psyche paramilitary commander Colonel Malcolm Grommett Spears (Paul Sorvino), he adds a nice touch of violence and fireworks. Is America saved? Who cares; there were plenty of exploding heads, messy goopy ice cream attacks, and car chases.
