Video stores need to make a comeback! Over the last year or two I’ve been feeling quite nostalgic for VHS and the video stores. While I don’t own a TV or a VCR at the moment I’ve been longing to go to yard sales and buy random VHS tapes. Even before my family had a VCR I would wander into the video store while my mom would be grocery shopping. There was a certain smell to that place that will never be duplicated. As I’ve learned from countless documentaries the genre of Horror was a driving force of the rental market and if one poster stood out to me from that first video store it was The Stuff. It took me until I was 30 before I saw that movie but that poster alone kept me from eating yogurt for over 20 years.
The Stuff is a riot of a movie. Horror-Comedies were nothing new but this was a satire and indictment of consumer culture of the 80s. People wanted look thin but also wanted to gorge on junk food. Imagine if there was a Weird Al type artist but bleak like Tool without sacrificing the humor, though there is some humor to Tool’s work, that would be The Stuff. The movie is funny but still disturbing.