Formless Horrors 4: That's the stuff

Horror and comedy is always a delicate balance, even when fart jokes are involved.  It's a tough thing to take two different ends of a spectrum and merging them to a greater effect.  Larry Cohen could never quite manage to equal that equation, but his movies tend to be so unique and oddball that they are very watchable anyway. 

"The Stuff," is one of my favorites of his.  It has Michael Moriarty, himself quite the oddball, as an industrial spy/detective who is given the assignment to figure out what makes "The Stuff" (a new snack sensation) so damn tasty and addictive.  It turns out that the stuff is a white formless beastie from the depths of the Earth.  As you eat it, it eats you.  And it in the end you become an addicted slave to what is basically killer yogurt.
This plot gives Larry Cohen a lot of opportunity to take pot shots at our consumer media.  There are a lot of ads for the Stuff peppered through the film.  It's just a shame he couldn't have been a little sharper and more focused with humor.

As odd as it is to see killer yogurt on the screen, well not ON the screen but you know what I mean, the concept is not unknown in nature.  Parasites infect their hosts and then often control their host's actions.  There's a worm, for instance, that once it infects a cricket eventually makes the cricket commit suicide by drowning.  After the cricket drowns the worm breaks free and swims away.  Something to consider the next time you chow down.