The Stuff

So follow me here. Some old dude finds a puddle of weird looking white shit bubbling out of the earth. Naturally, the first thing he does is try to eat it, and as it happens the stuff is delicious. Before you know it, "The Stuff" has become the most popular food on earth, dominating the supermarkets, with a ubiquitous marketing campaign to boot. The few holdouts who don't want to eat "The Stuff" start to sense that something is wrong, that other people are acting weird, and... did they just see that shit move? Turns out it's no ordinary snack treat, "The Stuff" is some sort of sentient The Blob like being that is trying to take over mankind by turning all of the people who eat it into its zombie slaves.

The Stuff, something of an offbeat horror/comedy, was written and directed by Larry Cohen, a fellow whose talent as a writer seems to be to take the worst possible idea for a B-movie he can think up and try to make it as fun as possible. Though not always successful (Maniac Cop, Uncle Sam), when he does come through, the results can be irresistibly silly and very entertaining (this one, the It's Alive movies, and surprisingly the Maniac Cop sequels). The Stuff is a goofy story told with a straight face. It benefits also from a likable performance by Michael Moriarty, some funny dialogue and a lot of enthusiastically ridiculous special effects.