The Stuff - Arrow Video Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

The “Stuff” is alive, you see. It came bubbling up from the ground one day, and the white, yogurt-like substance proved too irresistible. Someone tried it, they tasted it, and it was not only delicious, but it was also addictive. A short time later, it’s a nationwide sensation. Commercials. Jingles. Entire lifestyles are built around it. Sound familiar? The Stuff, Larry Cohen’s satirical horror film about consumerism and capitalism, takes the mundane reality of corporate marketing and exaggerates it into a hellish scenario. Corporate America has been profiting off of dangerous, addictive substances for a long time now—cigarettes and alcohol, and hell, even caffeine is marketed to kids through trendy sodas.

Not everyone is a fan of the Stuff, though. Young Jason (Scott Bloom) opens the fridge one night and sees it slithering around all by itself. He refuses to eat it, watching his family transform from naïve buyers into brainwashed zombies who will do anything for it. The multi-million-dollar junk food industry isn’t exactly pleased with the Stuff, either, as they hire David “Mo” Rutheford (Michael Moriarty), corporate saboteur extraordinaire, to find out what exactly makes this Stuff what it is.

Mo begins an investigation into the Stuff, beginning with the ad executive, Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), who created the name and the image of the product. She doesn’t indulge in the Stuff herself. Soon, they start to realize that the further they go, the more the Stuff stinks. It’s shrouded in secrecy, its true nature hidden behind an FDA law that protects secret formulas. Mo and Nicole see a newspaper article about Jason destroying a grocery store’s display of the Stuff and go to check out his story. The three of them begin to realize the powerful, hypnotic evil behind this Stuff.

The Stuff controls the minds of those who eat it, turning them into slavish zombies who want more and more. Like the commercial jingle says, “Enough is never enough of the Stuff!” We also get some gooey effects from the Stuff itself, a white mass of semi-coagulated junk that can crawl up ceilings, burst through walls, and even hide in someone’s pillow to suffocate them.

As a video store kid who grew up wandering aisles of tapes, I always adored the cover art for The Stuff, and that VHS sleeve still haunts my memories today. The Stuff is pure Cohen, complete with an unhinged lead performance from Michael Moriarty, who ad-libs his way through this silly story. None of this should work, but somehow it does. The Stuff isn’t particularly scary, and it’s not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but it has a B-movie charm that it coasts on. It feels, in many ways, reminiscent of old monster movies from the 1950s (especially The Blob), with a distinctly 1980s style and message for its time.

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Stuff comes to 4K UHD Blu-ray in a two-disc release. The first disc contains the film, plus supplements. The second disc, a regular Blu-ray, contains a longer, alternate version of the film with different takes, a different score, and about thirty minutes’ worth of additional material. But don’t call this a director’s cut! It’s a rough-cut version before it was pared down in the editing process. The case contains newly commissioned artwork by Chris Barnes and an illustrated collector's booklet featuring writing on the film by Joel Harley and Daniel Burnett.

The Stuff was scanned in 4K from its original film negative and graded in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible). Paul Glickman’s cinematography and the overall aesthetic of the film almost feels like it’s split into two. Daytime sequences are bright and colorful, nearly devoid of anything resembling a shadow. These sequences look straight out of a commercial that would advertise the Stuff. Nighttime sequences almost feel like an exaggerated version of what a horror movie should look like, with large, aggrandized shadows straight out of a German Expressionist film. Details throughout the film are sharp and bright, tacky 1980s colors are bright and luminescent. The video presentation is bathed in a fine layer of organic film grain—it’s alive!

The extended version of the film is in a much rougher, less-refined state, given the video source for its transfer. The extended version is presented in 1080p.

On the audio front, viewers have just the one, sole option: A lossless 2.0 LPCM mono mix. The Stuff doesn’t feature any sort of new 5.1 surround mix, which is fine by me—what we have is a front-only mix on the soundstage that does an outstanding job. The Stuff has a busy sound design, with an active musical score, ooey-gooey sound effects, rat-a-tat machine gun fire, and raucous explosions galore. Through it all, dialogue never gets lost in the mix, and you’ll never be fumbling with your remote to turn it up during the quieter moments or turn it down during the louder moments.

Arrow Video’s release of The Stuff should be called “Mo” 'cause when people buy this, they’re gonna be gettin’ mo'. Interviews, commentaries, and even a rare, never-before-seen extended version of the film, there’s enough of The Stuff.

4K Disc

• Audio Commentary – Writers and critics David Flint and Adrian Smith
• Audio Commentary – Writer/director Larry Cohen
• Can’t Get Enough of The Stuff (HD 52:09) – Documentary featuring Larry Cohen, producer Paul Kurta, actress Andrea Marcovicci, mechanical makeup effects artist Steve Neill and critic Kim Newman
• Enough is Never Enough (HD 16:44) – Featurette featuring previously unseen interviews with director Larry Cohen and producer Paul Kurta, originally shot for the 2017 documentary King Cohen
• 42^nd Street Memories (HD 1:21:45) - Feature-length documentary exploring the history of New York City's infamous 42nd Street, with first-hand accounts from an array of filmmakers, including Larry Cohen
• Trailers
• Image Gallery

Blu-ray Disc

• Pre-Release Cut: An early, pre-release cut of the film featuring over 30 minutes of additional footage and a different music score, exclusively remastered by Arrow Films. 

The Stuff is an oddly engaging film, one that hides a lot of intelligent, thoughtful discourse behind a façade of schlock. It’s at once a goofy B-movie horror flick about an evil, white blob, with a wonderfully deranged lead performance from Michael Moriarty, who wings the whole thing; it’s also a serious message about unchecked capitalism. The Stuff may say serious things, but it never makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously and has a lot of fun with its premise. Arrow Video’s release looks and sounds fantastic, boasting a wealth of supplemental features. The Stuff is Highly Recommended.