A new dessert, The Stuff, takes the country in a landslide, so
rival dessert producers hire industrial agent Moe (Michael Moriarty) to
find out what the Stuff is actually made of - and when Moe starts
investigating, he comes up with a few shocking facts, like that all the
FDA-officers who approved the Stuff have since died, that the Stuff is more addictive and more mind-altering than your everyday narcotic,
that the
Stuff is actually able to move around on its own, and that the stuff eats
up people from the inside ... ouch! Ultimately, Moe teams
up with Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), the Stuff's (well-meaning) marketing
director, and Jason (Scott Bloom), a little boy who's the only one who has
taken action against the Stuff that has taken over (and eventually killed)
his family (Colette Blonigan, Robert Frank Telfer, Brian Bloom). The three
of them find out that the Stuff isn't actually produced at all but mined -
obviously it's some bacteria from the center of the earth or something -
and sold to the customers unfiltered. It's literally up to Moe to save the
world, but unfortunately he can only do it with militia leader
(and white supremacist) Col Spears (Paul Sorvino) and his colleague Chocolate Chip Charlie
(Garrett Morris) - whom Spears is less than likely to accept bacause he's
black, and no matter what threat is posed from the outside, race still
matters to Spears a lot - so we might all be doomed thanks to our
favourite dessert ... The concept of this film is so
ridiculous it just has to work - at least in the able hands of Larry
Cohen, who does not turn his basic plot into a by-the-numbers shocker but
an all-out-attack against the FDA and the American food industry as such.
And while the film does deliver its fair share of shocks and gore scenes,
its main focus is satire - and as satire, with a weird and intentionally
trashy twist to it, the film works like a charm, constantly sidetracking but
never derailing its horror plot with witty allusions and deservingly mean
hints ... which makes the whole movie as hilarious as it is horrific. And a
quirky central performance by Michael Moriarty doesn't hurt to much
either, now does it? Recommended!
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