Enough Is Never Enough Of the Stuff!

Larry Cohen's extremely eccentric masterpiece The Stuff has been available on DVD since Anchor Bay released it in 2000. It was certainly a must-have for fans at the time, but it finally received a much needed HD upgrade in 2014, and man is it an improvement.

Update 1/5/15 - 7/29/25: "Update?"  More like a complete overhaul.  This is one of my earliest posts that didn't adhere to my now adopted format.  And it turns out I still had a page where the screenshots were all jpgs, so I had to replace everything.  But that's appropriate, because a complete overhaul is what Arrow's given The Stuff with their brand new, UHD/ BD release!

Admittedly, if I was a film producer and Mr. Cohen came to me with this script, I'd never back it. I'd be like, I loved your past work and you've proven yourself commercially for decades, but you've clearly dived far too deep into self indulgence with this one. You've taken the balance you usually strike of an underlying wit in your traditional genre films and pushed it way out of whack, becoming down right silly and bizarre. But I'm so glad he didn't listen to the profit protecting producers of this world, and made this movie anyway.

Superficially, The Stuff is a spin on the already off-beat cult flick, The Blob. That film starts off with an old man wandering off in the woods at night and finding a small, crashed meteorite. He touches it and a pink slime gets on his hand, which oozes up his arm and kills him by dissolving him. Well, in this film an old man is wandering out and finds a bubbling pile of white ooze on the ground in the snow. He touches it and... tastes it and it's wonderful. Suddenly, it's the new dessert sensation that's sweeping the nation. But it turns out to have a horrible secret. Soon, only a corporate saboteur played delightfully by Michael Moriarty, along with a small boy and Saturday Night Live's Garrett Morris wind up the only people who can save the world from a zero calorie doom.

If anything, it turns out to be more of a spin on Invasion Of the Body Snatchers, but it's a pretty broad spin.  This film has a terrific cast, including not only the names above but Danny Aiello, Paul Sorvino, Cohen regular James Dixon and even the original Where's the Beef lady reprising her role for an in-film ad campaign.  The special effects are mixed... some look great, some pretty poor.  But it all somehow works in this service of this story that's constantly veering off in new and entertaining directions.  This is a film that takes a specific mind set to really appreciate, but if that's you, you're going to love this movie.

This entire police station sequence is absent from the final cut.

Now, if you've heard any Larry Cohen interviews (including all of the ones on these discs), you know he's been unhappy with the final cut, regarding changes the distributors imposed on him.  He's talked about various scenes that were in the original cut but were now lost to the world, because he had no idea where that footage was.  Well, Arrow found it!  They've got a 35mm print of his original pre-release version, which turns out to be over half an hour longer.  It's also got a completely different score.

Is it better?  Well, yes and no.  There's some material I think they should've left in that I had a great time with, and other material that was better cut but still enjoyed.  The shorter run time does give the film a tighter pace, and some stuff, like the romance and extra Stuff commercials add some lag.  But any fan of The Stuff should be delighted to see this alternate version.  There are some great lines and weird moments (including a scene where the older brother performs The Telltale Heart for a for a perturbed cop).  And if you notice, the closing credits list five celebrity "special guest stars," but only four appeared in the film.  Well, now we've found that fifth one: Laurene Landon.  And the original score is pretty good, too.  It's definitely an alternate cut I'll return to for future watches.

Anchor Bay released the initial DVD in 2000, and it was pretty great for its time.  Then Image reissued it as a very skippable barebones edition in 2011.  But the next noteworthy release was Arrow's UK special edition blu-ray, first released as a BD/ DVD combo pack in 2014.  For the record, they went on to release it in the US in 2016, then they reissued it in the UK in 2017 and the US in 2019, but the only significant difference is that they were single disc BD releases.  It felt like the final word on the film, with its 2k restoration and all new special features, but 2025 has proven that wrong.  Now Arrow has restored the film in 4k on a proper UHD cooked up some more new extras, and of course unearthed that pre-release cut (on BD only, since it's taken from a print).

1) 2000 AB DVD; 2) 2014 Arrow DVD; 3) 2014 Arrow BD;
4) 2025 Arrow UHD; 5) 2025 Arrow BD (pre-release cut).

So they're all anamorphic widescreen, but the aspect ratio is shifting around here, which Arrow initially corrects from AB's 1.82:1 to 1.83:1, but as you can see, they also uncover a lot more information on the left side and along the top.  1.82 to 1.83 may not sound like much, but in this case, it's a big difference.  The UHD tweaks it a little further, to a proper 1.85:1, but it's a much more subtle fix.  Interestingly, the pre-release cut is also 1.85:1, but cropped back down the way the original DVD was.  Arrow's 2014 scan is a much cleaner, more natural image than AB's disc, though admittedly, the colors look a little faded. This was right around the time of Arrow's infamous Demons blu, though, and it's nowhere near as bad as that.  Especially since, in comparison, the DVD looks over-saturated and contrast-y.  But the film definitely looks its best in the new 4k scan.  The old blu has really nicely rendered film grain already, and there's not really anymore detail to add to the picture, but the colors are much more vibrant and absorbing.  The pre-release cut, meanwhile, is much more contrast-y and washed, but that's to be expected given the source elements.

All five versions have the original mono in 2.0, and the blus bump it up to LPCM.  Anchor Bay did not include subtitles, but all the Arrow discs include removable English ones, even the pre-release cut.

So Anchor Bay started us off with a Larry Cohen commentary, and if you've heard any of his, you know there's always great.  He has a fun attitude and is happy to share all his secrets.  They also threw in the theatrical trailer and an insert.  But disappointingly, Arrow's 2014 dropped the commentary!  They just about made up for it, though, with their original retrospective documentary, which runs almost an hour long, featuring interviews with Larry Cohen, producer Paul Kurta, special effects creator Steve Neill, female lead Andrea Marcovicci, and film critic Kim Newman.  It also featured the original theatrical trailer and an extra fun bonus: The Stuff's Trailers From Hell episode (more DVDs should include these!), featuring the director of Saw 2 & 3, Darren Bousman.  It also has reversible artwork and a 24-page booklet by Joel Harley.

The good news now is: the commentary is back!  Arrow's 2025 release has both the 2000 commentary and the 2014 doc.  And they have new stuff!  There's a lost interview with Cohen and Kurta (or technically two, edited together) that was shot but not used for the King Cohen documentary.  Unfortunately, they don't say anything they didn't already say, practically verbatim, in the doc and commentary.  But since Cohen's no longer with us, it's nice to get any piece of lost footage back.  Arrow's also recorded a new commentary, by two experts, who spend most of their time repeating what Larry said in his own commentary, along with reading peoples' filmographies and discussing other films.  In other words, thanks for making the effort, Arrow, but this one should absolutely be skipped.

Oh, and surprisingly, Arrow has also slapped the 2015 42nd Street Memories documentary (which I've written about here) on this disc.  It's already been included as an extra on multiple different releases of various films over the years, and it doesn't have much to do with The Stuff.  But if you don't already have it (I think this is the third time it's entered my collection), it's nice to have.  They've added a couple more trailers and TV spots, but disappointingly, they dropped the Trailers From Hell.  Honestly, I'd rather have that then all the new stuff, but just getting the documentary and Cohen commentary together on this release is already a win.  And hey, more is always better than less.  This one also has reversible artwork and comes in a slipcover, with a 32-page booklet with everything Harley wrote for the previous book, plus a new essay by  Daniel Burnett.

I know everybody's excited about Scream Factory's Day Of the Dead announcement (so am I!!), but I don't see anything toppling this release as disc of the year for me.  An underrated film I love getting a 4k remaster on UHD, an alternate version I never thought we'd get to see, the old commentary back with all new stuff?  This is the one I've been obsessively monitoring the mailbox for, and now that it's hear, it's everything I was hoping for.