THE STUFF

Directed & Written by Larry Cohen
Produced by Paul Kurta
Cinematography by Paul Glickman
Cast: Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Scott Bloom & Paul Sorvino

1985/93 mins/Color/2.0 DD
1.85:1 anamorphic/English/US/NTSC Region 1

Review from the Anchor Bay DVD

Upon literaly walking into a white goo lying and moving in the ground, an elderly oil refinery worker decides to taste it (yeah i guess it's what everyone would do right?!). He finds it quite delicious and decides to market it thus The Stuff is born. Soon everyone around the country is hooked on this new product. Other compagnies are starting to lose money at an alarming rate and they want to know what's the whole deal behind the success of The Stuff. They hire an industrial spy called Mo (Michael Moriarty who also appeared in Cohen's Q THE WINGED SERPENT) to investigate the secret behind. At the same time, a kid (Scott Bloom) realizes that The Stuff actually moves by itself. All of his familly loves it and as the days goes by they become zombie-like and want to force Scott to eat it. The two story eventually comes together as one. Mo finally finds help in a extremist military, Colonel Spears (Sorvino) to destroy The Stuff which became a plague like menace.

Like most movies from Larry Cohen, this one is a satire of everyday life, this one being about consumerism. The ad campaign for The Stuff are great and could almost pass up for real ads. In my opinion this is one of Cohen's best.

Anchor Bay did a nice job with this DVD, the film is presented in a 1.85:1 ratio, the colors are nicely rendered, there is no signs of compression or artifacts. The new audio track sounds good and clear. The film is separated in 26 chapters and comes with an inlay card with the original poster on one side and the chapter stops on the other. As for the menus they're great, Anchor Bay went all out in this departement and made the menus like The Stuff ads with the soundtrack playing in the background. Extrawise, we get some notes about Larry Cohen, a very cool theatrical trailer and best of all a very informative and interesting commentary track with Cohen himself.

Thanks to Anchor Bay

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 Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2003. ©