The Stuff

4.8

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TIFF is a charitable cultural organization with a mission to transform the way people see the world, through film.

Introduction by series Programmer Norm Wilner

Only Larry Cohen could look at the frozen-yogurt boom of the ’80s and see an existential threat… but that’s why we have The Stuff, a cracked horror-comedy rooted in the Reagan-era relaxing of consumer protections and government oversight.

Imagine the perfect dessert. It’s delicious, it has no calories, it needs no refrigeration, and its prevalence could conceivably end world hunger. There’s only one question: Are you eating it, or is it eating you?

In Cohen’s vision, humanity’s only hope are a hick industrial espionage expert (Michael Moriarty), an ad executive (Andrea Marcovicci), a chocolate-chip cookie tycoon (Garrett Morris) and a paranoid militia leader (Paul Sorvino), all of whom come together to battle the murderous, possibly sentient dessert. Cohen said that New World Pictures was disappointed to see he’d delivered a comedy; they thought they were getting a more conventional genre work, but anyone familiar with the wild finale of God Told Me To and the general New York crankiness of Q would have known Cohen didn’t do conventional. The Stuff dares to be weird and silly and creepy all at once, pointing out that trendy health fads can be hazardous to the public health.

Seriously, show me another movie that predicted the rise of Goop.

NORM WILNER