The Stuff

A necessary evil.

A necessary evil? Hardly. Necessary, but not evil. The standard, really: If you don't know what 'bad' is, how can you say what 'good' is?

And once you have determined what 'good' is what to make of the 'bad'? Especially the 'bad' that is 'good'?

Bad as in good: "The Stuff".

"The Stuff" is a bad movie. So bad it is good. Well, for a time, anyway. Then it's just plain awful.

There are, of course, reasons for this, this finally failing: "The Stuff" tries to be more than it can ever hope for, and collapses under unrealistic ambitions.

Here's how that happens (and why "The Stuff", which could be 'good', ends up 'bad'): To make a horror film first you must make a horror film. Not something that pretends to be or plays at being a horror film. An actual horror film: Screaming females, chainsaws whining, blood splattering, limbs being dismembered. Then you must make a satirical horror film that is clever.

"The Stuff" isn't. On all accounts.

The premise of "The Stuff": Gooey white stuff is found to be oozing and bubbling out of the ground near a refinery in Alaska. A worker on the refinery--a redneck type--decides to taste the gooey white stuff--and, hey! It's tasty!

Blah, blah, blah. Before you can burp the alphabet The Stuff is bottled and packaged and on the shelves of your favorite grocery store.

Interesting fact about The Stuff: People can't get enough of it. They eat it, they eat it, they eat it. Morning, noon, night--they eat it.

Now this is an interesting and rather clever premise, and a good director--a good horror director--could do amazing things with this premise. (Think: "Soylent Green".)

Unfortunately, the director of "The Stuff", Larry Cohen, doesn't. Which is odd, I think, because his first film, "It's Alive" (1976), a semi-realistic horror film, demonstrated what he is capable of. And if there was any doubt about him as a good horror director one only need look to his film "Q" (1983) to see he was not a flash in the pan.

So what happened? What happened is that "The Stuff" just does not have the stuff to be a good bad film.

There is good to "The Stuff", though: The performance by Michael Moriarty. His presence alone makes watching all of "The Stuff" tolerable.

Overall "The Stuff" has moments when it seems certain to break out, to become a sleeper hit. But just when those moments arrive Cohen pulls back and "The Stuff" turns into, um, stuff of a bad nature. (Think: Baby after a heaping helping of mashed peas and cooked prunes.)

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