OMGJeremy

Movie Review: The Stuff

Hey guys, sorry that I missed a few weeks of articles. I just picked up this new game World of Warcraft, maybe you’ve heard of it? Anyway, I’ve spent the last week or two playing it and didn’t find time to write at all, so I apologize. Wait, what? Ok, Jeremy is telling me that it’s been something crazy like 5 years since I’ve written anything new. That can’t be right. What’s that? It’s 2010?! A black president? Jay Leno got fired, then rehired, and now Conan is out of a job? Whatever Jeremy, I’m not falling for your tricks again. Besides, if that was right I’d surely be fired from my real job by now — I’ve been calling in sick since I got WoW and… hmm… you know, I might be in a bit of trouble here. This would explain my ZZ Top beard I appear to have grown in the last “few days.” Oh my. Well… might as well pick up where I left off. This week, I present to you The Stuff, a movie about the horrors of a new alternative to ice cream.

I am not kidding – this movie is about killer yogurt. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s get to the movie. Much like every other movie about deadly dessert, this movie starts in a mine. I have no idea what mine this is, or what they mine for because they don’t tell us and they’re wearing absolutely no protective gear, except a flashlight. That’s smart mining. Nameless Old Man Miner enters and notices that in the corner of the mine is a bubbling white substance oozing from the floor. It looks like it’s a little thicker than paint, but less thick than spackle. Actually, it’s the consistency of feces. White bubbly feces. Anyway, Old Man Miner (who coincidentally does have a name: it’s Harry) does exactly what I would do in this situation — he reaches down and puts his hands in it, and he eats it.

Wait what? Wow, I’m 23 seconds into this movie, and already I can tell that I’m going to need to assume that this whole movie is based in a world of retarded people. Who else would just find something coming out of the ground and eat it? That’s right. The retarded. So we’re in a mine that is run by retarded people, and I just watched a man eat white diarrhea coming from the floor. This movie was a good choice. Apparently, so was Harry’s decision to eat this paste — because it’s “good” and sweet. Harry and his team of miners quickly decide that the best plan of action is to call poison control and then to figure out what this goo is and make sure that nobody else eats it or anything until it’s properly tested. The end. Well… that’s what they should have done. Of course, that doesn’t happen, and instead they decide it’s a good idea to package it up and sell it, since it’s obviously totally normal to eat random chemical runoff.

And their new product, cleverly named “The Stuff”, is quite the hit. It begins filling store shelves, refrigerators, even buying out Chocolate Chip Charlie’s West Coast business line. I didn’t even make that last part up, and it will be of some importance later, so file that away in the “why am I reading this” drawer for now. Naturally, a business taking off from startup to billion dollar business has some unwanted attention, and they have it in the form of a conglomerate of businessmen who are concerned about their own dessert items being forgotten (and more importantly not purchased). That’s right, “Big Ice Cream” is worried, and as such they hire an ex-FBI agent named Mo Rutherford to figure out what The Stuff actually is so that they can copy it. Mo isn’t his real name – people call him “Mo” because every time he gets money, he wants mo’. He actually says this, and I actually threw up in my mouth. His actual first name is David, and he is probably the worst actor in this movie, and that’s saying something since it’s about an evil food item.

“Just can't get enough … of the Stuff!”

Other than ice cream millionaires, only two other people are concerned about this mystery paste that nobody seems to know anything about. In great 80s movie tradition, one of them is a kid. Kids always ruin the best plans, just ask any Scooby Doo villain or anyone who’s heard Chris Hansen ask them to sit down for a minute. This kid is Jason (no idea what his last name is), and he wakes up one night to get a snack and catches the family tub of the Stuff crawling in the fridge. From that point on he’s making it a point to refuse to eat it, and tell anyone who will listen about how the Stuff is terrible and moves around all by itself. Of course, nobody believes him, not the least his own family, and he spends the next few times he’s on screen making everyone around him really annoyed and pretty much spilling the sourest of creams all over the place. I am far too proud of that last sentence.

Mo Rutherford, on the other hand, has been busy working on discovering the secrets of the Stuff in what appears to be a high school chemistry lab. After giving up on figuring out the formula for The Stuff using “science,” Mo decides the best way to get information on The Stuff is to try and convince the woman behind the advertising campaign to somehow give him access to the company. Her claim to fame is that she picked out the name of the product, you know, the one that is officially named The Stuff. Then again, this movie is populated by miners that eat unknown discharge and people who buy carts and carts of dessert at the store, so she probably is a genius here. Mo finds this advertising exec, Nicole Kendall, and cleverly gets her to talk to him by lying to her, telling her that he wants to buy out her whole agency and put her in charge. Nicole responds in the way you would assume – she and Mo go back to her hotel room to have sex and room service dinner. Then this plot ends abruptly, never to be referenced again. Seriously, from here on out somehow Nicole and Mo are working together and it’s never really explained why.

Mo next goes to interview the only person still available that was part of the original FDA testing and approval of The Stuff, Mr. Vickers, because apparently the rest of the people involved in the original testing have either left the country or deceased. During the whole interview Vicker’s dog, a large black Doberman looking thing, keeps barking and scaring Vickers– probably because Vickers admits he feeds his dog The Stuff instead of dog food. The only thing of value that Mo gets from this interview is that The Stuff was tested in a little town in Virginia, and some copies of some initial lab reports. Immediately after Mo leaves, Vickers’ dog goes apeshit because they are all out of Stuff. He attacks Vickers, unplugs the phone line while Vickers is trying to call 911, begins violently shaking, and white goo erupts from his mouth.

Mo now drives to Stater, Virginia where the stuff was previously tested. I’m not 100% sure that is the name of the town since there is no Stater in Virginia, but does it really matter? Stater, VA, is a run-down town with nothing but a working gas station, a post office, and a bunch of abandoned houses. While looking around for any sign of whatever Mo thinks he’s going to find here, Mo runs into the second person that seems to think something is up with The Stuff – dessert mogul Chocolate Chip Charlie himself, played by Garrett Morris from the first few seasons of Saturday Night Live. I only mention this because I didn’t see Garrett Morris much after SNL, unlike Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, or Dan Ackroyd. No – it appears Garrett’s agents weren’t very good, because instead of bustin’ ghosts he’s been stuck fighting killer snot.

Remember that earlier I mentioned that the Stuff people bought out Charlie’s west coast business? Well, that’s not quite how it worked out. Charlie is in Stater because his family sold him out of his own business to the Stuff people and then ran off to Stater to hide from him. The address he has for his family was actually the address for the post office, so Mo and Charlie head over there to see if they can get any more information on what happened to the residents of this town. The clerk at the office is less than helpful, but by looking at the outgoing mail, Mo and Charlie find out that almost everyone in Stater has relocated to the same address in Midland, GA. Charlie confronts the clerk about it, and the clerk responds by excusing himself to the back room and vomiting white slime all over himself.

Paint has never looked so horrifying.

Charlie and Mo get concerned when they hear gurgling sounds and realize they’ve been sitting in the post office for way too long, and they break the door down to find the postal worker laying dead on the floor with his mouth open wide enough to insert a softball. Then out of nowhere they are attacked by a group of men at some sort of industrial dockyard. I don’t know how they got to a dockyard. A minute ago we were in a post office in a small town with no sign of water around mid day, and now here we are at night fighting people in a dockyard. This is not the only weird break in continuity, but it’s probably the most glaring. I’m sure if more than 7 people saw this movie, there would be some amazing directors cut or something with all the scenes added back in which would make a lot of this movie make more sense, but for now, we’ll all assume that this is a mystical teleporting post office of the future. Charlie and Mo run from the men, stopping to literally punch a hole in a guy’s face, and make their escape to a little metal rowboat which somehow takes them to a diner.

I am sorry if that last paragraph is unintelligible, but it’s pretty much exactly what happens in order. I had to watch this movie a few times just to figure out why Mo was going to each place he went to. You wouldn’t believe how unreadable this would have been if I didn’t. Anyway, Mo and Charlie decide to split up, with Charlie heading to find Agent Frank Herbert of the FBI because Mo thinks he will help. Mo heads out to Midland, GA, to see where the people of Stater, VA, have packed up and moved to. We won’t see Charlie again for quite a while, so instead we follow Mo over to Midland.

Actually, Mo makes a stop at the Stuff headquarters to talk to some sort of President of Marketing or something. This begs the question – if Mo knew where to get a hold of the corporate branch of The Stuff, why did we just go through the last 30 minutes of wandering? After a completely unimportant conversation with the Prez, Mo goes back to the high school lab and finds out about Jason – the kid who hates the Stuff. He finds this out because Jason getting arrested at the grocery store for causing a scene is somehow front page news on a newspaper.

Worst newspaper ever. I guess Batboy had the day off?

Speaking of Jason, we haven’t seen him in about 20 minutes – wonder what he’s been up to? Well, he’s been grounded by his parents for throwing The Stuff at the supermarket and generally being an annoying douche to everyone he meets, so Jason gets to spend a long time in his room. His family has gone on an All-Stuff diet, and they are acting like they live on a commercial. Actually saying stuff like, “Hey son, did you know that the Stuff is good – and good for you! [big smile].” His parents force him to stay in his room until he eats a pint of Stuff. What does Jason do? He throws the Stuff in the toilet and proceeds to eat a pint of shaving cream in front of his family to prove he’s eating it. Now, he was told to stay upstairs until he ate it all, so he could have just thrown it out, waited like 10 minutes, and then come back downstairs with the empty container. That’s what I would have done. Instead, by bringing down fake Stuff, he gets caught when he gags on shaving cream and drops the Stuff, leaving the container sitting around for his father to eat some. Real smart, Jason. You douche.

Jason is then chased around by his family, and Mo shows up just in time to pick him up. Jason has never met Mo, and Mo is a guy in a trench coat in an unmarked car. So Jason gets in the car, which is always a good thing to teach your kids. I would also like to point out that I went to IMDB to get some of the character names for this movie, and one of the commenters on there said that this movie made him eat shaving cream, just to see what it tastes like. This person also gave the movie like 9/10. This person was probably a mongoloid.

Mo and Jason meet up with Nicole the ad exec and they fly out to Midland to the Stuff factory for a tour. Nicole, being the creative force behind the Stuff’s marketing is able to get this tour, so I suppose that is why Mo hunted her down to begin with. It’s taken over 45 minutes, but something actually makes sense in this movie. Well done. While Mo and Nicole go through the most boring tour I’ve ever seen, Jason manages to find a nearby abandoned mine area–except this mine isn’t abandoned (DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!). After hiding in an empty tanker truck, Jason is taken off to who knows where and Mo and Nicole act as if Jason was never around and rent a motel room. Mo makes no point of looking for Jason, or even saying something out loud like “a minute ago there was a 12 year old boy with us… man, I sure could use a handjob!” Instead, Mo and Nicole just go off to hump all night at the Starlight Motel and Jason is left to his own devices.

However, Mo and Nicole don’t get a good night of sleep for other reasons – Mo is attacked as he is trying to sleep by Stuff oozing out of his pillow and covering his face so he can’t breathe. Nicole wakes up to find Mo flopping around on the ground ripping at his face, so she does the most reasonable thing you can do. She throws alcohol on his face and lights it on fire to burn off the Stuff. This goes about as well as you’d think it would.

Hunka hunka burnin' love.

It does actually work though, and the flaming Stuff leaps off his face and sticks to the wall. Some guy, assumed to be under the influence of The Stuff, runs in to finish the job, but then the bed shoots white goo all over the Stuffy and drags him across the ceiling in a scene that looks ripped off of the boyfriends death scene in the original Nightmare on Elm Street, except with more liquid marshmallows. Mo lights that on fire and runs out of the hotel to head back to the Stuff factory to see what’s going on.

Thankfully, even though the factory is still fully operational and someone connected to the Stuff just tried to kill him, Mo has no problem getting to the secret source of the Stuff – the old abandoned mine, where Mo and Nicole get a good look at where the Stuff really comes from, it bubbles right up from the Earth itself. It also has blown up from the little puddle that miner found originally. The Stuff is now in a swimming pool sized basin, and filled with not-quite humanoid shapes that are floating around and doing nothing. Are these things eggs? Are these former humans that the Stuff itself is eating? Are these just rock formations that are now covered in the Stuff? All of those are plausible explanations, and are the best we’re going to get – what these things are is never explained at all.

Jason is also at the Stuff mine, although he doesn’t really know it. He’s been hiding in that tanker truck all night, and conveniently the truck has driven to the mine to get refilled with a fresh shipment. Jason is the luckiest boy on the planet, because just as he’s about to get drowned in the stuff, Mo happens to walk by the truck and hears Jason screaming for help. Mo steals the truck and sets off a detonator that caves the mine in, and drives off for safety – conveniently picking up Nicole who is just standing around by the road at two in the morning. Mo makes the point to explain that they need to go to a big city because a small city is too easily controlled by the evil Stuff corporation. That actually makes sense.

But he doesn’t do that. He instead drives out to an old castle run by an ex-military nutjob who is training his own militia, Colonel Malcolm Grommett Spears. Mo has never met this person before, and the Colonel is obviously a little bit crazy, but Mo knows this guy is a patriot and that the Stuff hates freedom or something, and that’s enough of a reason for the Colonel to send his boys out on a mission to blow the shit out of the Stuff factory and close them down for good. There’s not much resistance however, because when they get there all the Stuff employees are dehydrated husks with their mouths stuck wide open, much like the post office clerk. So where did all the stuff go?

Oh, Yeah!!!

The Stuff has banded together to become one giant slime, which chases Nicole and Jason through the factory and finally breaks through the wall to face the Colonel and his forces and…

It just sits there.

That’s right, all the Stuff which formerly was able to hide in pillows and strangle people, or weave like a snake through the factory now just sits in a big pile outside doing nothing. And that’s the big finish to this story? I mean, the factory is closed down, the mine is collapsed, what could be left. Well, there’s the matter of all the Stuff that is already available in stores, but there’s a limit to that. And the Colonel conveniently owns some radio stations in Atlanta, so he’s going to make a public announcement not to eat the Stuff. So this was our payoff? Right now I’m feeling pretty ripped off, but there’s still like 15 minutes left on this thing. So maybe something else awesome would happen.

Colonel Spears casually flies the whole group to his radio station to make their announcement. You’d think that their message of “Pardon me, but what’s in your fridge right now could kill you,” would be a little more pressing, but they sort of meander over to the station and then work on how to properly word the announcement and eventually they’ll make their statement and… oh wait a second, there’s a surprise guest from about half an hour ago–Chocolate Chip Charlie is back! Since he’s a loved semi-celebrity, they think he’ll be great person to give out the message to help convince people that they’re telling the truth. Charlie and Nicole head off to work on their message, and this movie is wrapped up.

You know… Charlie never did seem to find the FBI. And how did he know to find the station? Something doesn’t smell right here. Charlie waits until Nicole and he are alone, and then begins to shake violently and his head starts to expand and the Stuff expels itself towards Nicole to take her out!

You should really just go to youtube and search “Charlie Goes Berzerk” for the full effect.

Mo manages to save Nicole by cutting some giant unlabeled power cord and electrocuting the Stuff until it bursts into flames. This is nowhere near as awesome looking as Charlie exploding, however, and from here The Colonel just ad-libs a message about how the Stuff is evil and should be destroyed. People storm the streets in anger, having Stuff bonfire parties and sending people addicted to Stuff to the hospital. Mo has saved the day, but Mo and Jason have one more job to do– they make a little visit to the former Stuff corporation to confront them about their product causing the harm of the American people. The company hasn’t learned their lesson however, because they brag about their new product “The Taste” which contains a small portion of The Stuff and the rest is dairy product. However, Mo isn’t just going to let them get away with this. As punishment for their misdeeds, Jason makes the President eat a whole box of Stuff at gunpoint. I guess they got their – just desserts!

That was an awful pun, and I’m sorry.

So the Stuff is off the streets, the factory shut down, and the people responsible for the Stuff have been disposed of. The movie is essentially over, except that every bad movie needs the “is it really over?” scene, and The Stuff is no different. The Stuff is now some sort of underground superdrug and we watch as a new shipment of the Stuff is delivered to what I assume is a Stuff dealer.

The credits roll, and I am left with way too many questions. What exactly was the Stuff? What did it do to people? Some people seemed like they were mind-controlled by the Stuff, but other people were more or less just vehicles for the Stuff to travel around and infect people. The Stuff also was really liquidy sometimes, and other times it was more like cement. What were those weird shapes in the Stuff pool in the cave? Really, I should just stop caring and enjoy that I got to watch a bunch of people vomit paste for 90 minutes.

As a side note, you can find a lot of interesting things on YouTube. For example, the trailer for this movie (which has a whole load of scenes that aren’t even in the actual movie) or even the whole movie itself.. So if you happen to have some extra time and want to watch this, here’s a gift from OMGJ that we didn’t actually put up on youTube so if it’s not there anymore when you try it, don’t cry to us.