Talk:The Stuff

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:The Stuff/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Z. Patterson (talk · contribs) 21:06, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Viriditas (talk · contribs) 00:01, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Feedback

Infobox

• Release date appears wrong.

Lead

• The lead has several minor problems, from wording to flow to excessive detail. It is currently unbalanced.
• science fiction horror film YouTube currently lists the genre as comedy, which it is, but I can see how it was originally released as horror. Not sure about science fiction, although there is a prominent story within the film that has scientists trying to reverse engineer the recipe. Then again, the film is more of a comedic horror satire than anything else, so I'm not certain the current genre in the lead is accurate.
  • Thinking about this further, I do think comedy should be added to the genre in the lead, as in comedy horror science fiction. The 1980s were the heyday for this genre.
• Critics praised its acting, story, and performance. Well, you've got a problem here. As the body of the article says,the film did not perform well for various reasons. Upon its release, did it receive good reviews? I don't think it did, yet your reception section cites recent reviews of an old film which give it an entirely different reception now that audiences have finally caught up to what Cohen was trying to do back in 1985. I've been reading the old reviews on newspapers.com. They are not good. You need to be able to separate the old from the new. To see how other articles do this, you could try reading Blade Runner to see how they handle it, as that film faced the same problem. In other words, critics hated it upon its release and it performed poorly, but was only seen as a masterpiece in retrospect. While I don't think The Stuff was a masterpiece, the critics at that time had no idea what was going on and weren't paid to think about it. To see how another film does this, check out They Live. It was also panned when it came out for similar reasons; the critics just didn't understand it. After about five years or so, it reached cult status and is now considered a great film. This is a very common problem in arts and entertainment. Truly original works are often lambasted upon their release in all genres. This is because the commercialization of art doesn't elevate what is original or new or different, but rather what has been done before, what is known, and what can be expected to generate revenue. Unfortunately, the critics are captured by this economic system and are, for the most part, slaves to it. That's why there is a temporal disconnect between the contemporaneous and future reviews. Examples abound: Manet, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Duchamp, Moby Dick, Emily Dickinson, Ulysses, Citizen Kane, Vertigo, The Shining, The Prestige, New Blue Sun, etc. As I like to say, the critics are often wrong.

Plot

• Perfect size and dense, but slight wording concerns with repetition, etc.
• The Stuff is actually a living, parasitic, extraterrestrial organism that gradually takes over the brain and mutates those who eat it into zombie-like creatures, which it then uses to make more of itself before bursting out of their bodies and leaving empty husks behind. Where does it say this in the film? Or does it say this in a different version ("30 minutes of previously unreleased footage")? I just watched the version on YouTube, which is a HQ print and easy to watch, and it doesn't say this. Instead, it argues quite indirectly that The Stuff is an exotic terrestrial life form, similar to bacteria or yeast, that is native to planet Earth and found around the globe in various locations. In fiction, this is often referred to as ultraterrestrial. Although it isn't stated in the film, and wouldn't become a popular topic until much later, The Stuff loosely resembles what we know as parasitic fungi today, with the best example known as the zombie-ant fungus.
  • Looking at the interview in Larry Cohen The Stuff Of Gods And Monsters, he explicitly denies that the creature is extraterrestrial from the jump, so I don't know why this is in the plot section: Once I decided that The Stuff was an ice cream dessert, and, of course, became an amorphous gooey substance, naturally some would assume that The Blob had something to do with it. The Blob was an alien organism from outer space that was crawling around dissolving people. In The Stuff, we were dealing with something that was a food that people actually ate and it lived inside them, taking possession of their mind, body and soul. It was an entirely different idea. Here, the victims were inviting, or at least contributing, to their own destruction, and, again, that can be a metaphor for whatever you like: alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, or junk food.

Cast

• Make sure this conforms with MOS:FILMCAST.

Production

• The gatehouse at the Mohonk Mountain House was featured in a scene in The Stuff. No need for generalities. As you say in the text, it's the HQ of the militia. Say something like that in the caption.
• Says nothing about the scenes shot in West Paterson, New Jersey.
  • This was covered in some detail regarding the Teamsters in Larry Cohen: The Stuff Of Gods And Monsters. It concerns the fashion show scene. I think you at least need to mention it.
• The script was an original story by Cohen. He commented on consumerism in the United States and called some of the products being sold "damaging". He said that he frequently read about product recalls because of these products "harming people" and cited unhealthy foods as an example of this phenomenon. He cited the consumption of "junk food" and its effects as his influence. He questioned how this consumption could be detrimental. The way this is written is confusing and ambiguous and you don't need to quote at all. I recommend rewriting.
• You say "he commented on consumerism", but that and corporate greed were his main inspirations for the film; not so much a comment. Please revisit this material and rewrite without quotes, paying attention to the proper framing. The way you write "He questioned how this consumption could be detrimental" is so ambiguous that it almost has the opposite meaning of what Cohen said in the interview. Please rewrite the whole paragraph.
  • Reading this again and reviewing the source, I would invite you to rewrite it and not use any quotes. The way you use scare quotes here detracts from the content and is generally not recommended. Quotes are used for a specific reason, and this isn't it.
• Morris did not enjoy working with Cohen. Makes me wonder if the dispute was about his lines and the outcome of his character. His lines were cliche and his character got done dirty. Would be nice to hear more about this problem if more could be found.

Release

• The film premiered at USA Film Festival on March 30, and it was theatrically released in the United States by New World Pictures, opening in several California cities on June 14, 1985 Apologies, but I didn't see anything in those sources about the USA Film festival, and they don't indicate (with certainty) that the film opened on June 14 (although I am leaning towards that conclusion).
• the day The Stuff opened in New York a hurricane hit and the newspapers were not delivered. This was a bit confusing since the infobox says it was released in June while the AFI says September.
  • I'm looking through newspapers.com. There is no indication this film was released in June and that date probably comes from IMDB, which is often wrong. It was released in September as best as I can tell, which lines up with the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season Cohen was talking about.
    • I see you've added two cites to film showings in Fresno and Hanford, California from June 1985. Having lived through the 1980s, I remember attending early release films in test markets. This is what this looks like. It does not look like a general release at all. If you can find further sources that would be great, because the AFI source says the general release was in August or September. Also, I don't see any film reviews until September. I participated in market research for several films in the 1980s, so I've seen this kind of thing before. But it doesn't really explain why it says it is opening in Fresno or Hanford in June. I'm wondering if it actually did open, as Cohen mentions delays in the AFI piece cited to industry mags.
• The comedic portrayals of the characters appeared to have "greatly diluted the horror element". Not seeing a good reason to quote here; just paraphrase.
• He said that before the film was released, people in a different audience would favor this film instead of those in Cohen's target audience. Super confusing when you look directly at the source material. Please rewrite.

• Not seeing anything about cable television and how it kept this film alive, although that's more of a memory that I have than a source. I looked and couldn't find anything.

Copyright dispute

• Not a fan of how this is written, and I'm not convinced the blockquote is needed. I think you can describe the dispute with a bit more density in terms of prose.
• The company Effects Associates was hired by Cohen to supply some of the special effects shots. When the shots were delivered, Cohen was not satisfied with shots of exploding factory buildings. More should be said about this. I just re-watched the film last night, and the shot of the exploding building was the worst one of the FX shots in the entire film. This is because as the building explodes, we see several people blown away with the rubble. That shot was poorly done as you can see the outlines of their bodies, which gives the impression of a cut and paste job, frame by frame.

Home media

• While the article doesn't have to be comprehensive like a FA-class article, this section is slightly underwhelming based on the data that I've found. This is likely because it was never updated.
• On July 22, 2025, Arrow Films reissued the film in a limited edition 4K UHD Blu-ray set featuring the original theatrical cut as well as an earlier pre-release cut of the film.[7][25][26] Why do you need three different sources here? I'm pretty sure at least one (or the one I linked to above) will suffice.

Reception

• Paragraphs are too large for readability. Please split up into at least two.

References

Spot check

• 9a: Semi-check. Problems described above.
• 9b: Semi-check. Problems described above.
• 13a: Check, but see issues above.
• 13b: Semi-check. See issue above.
• 16: Check, but see my concern with lining up the release dates.
• 20a: Check.
• 20b: Check.
• 20c: Check.
• 20d: Check.
• 25: Check.
• 33: Check.

Sources

• Reverse copyvio: Earwig lights up like a Christmas tree due to an account on DeviantArt called "Jacob-the-Fox-Critic", who apparently copied over the wiki page.

External links

• AV Club link is dead, as you know, and it seems silly to even have it here. Why not try and incorporate it into your article?

Images

• No issues. Good job using a HQ scan for the poster in the infobox.

Review

1. Well-written: Not bad, just minor issues.
2. Verifiable: Release date might be wrong. No indication it was released in June. AFI and newspapers.com indicate late August or early September release. The creature does not appear to be an extraterrestrial as is stated in the plot, but rather an ultraterrestrial (in-universe) similar to bacteria or yeast that is native to Earth. In an interview (see above comments), the writer notes that it is not connected to alien-like plot devices but rather a metaphor for self-destuction by consummerism/addiction/etc. Production section is loosely verifiable, but the framing of the material from the sources needs additional work.
3. Broad: Do you mention the planned sequel that was never made? There's mention of it in your AFI catalog source with the original Daily Variety citation. Also no mention of original reception. See comments above. That's important. No mention of New Jersey shooting location in production.
4. Neutral: You've got a few issues with an accurate portrayal of the critical reception in the lead and the body. You portray it just fine in the body (but neglect older reviews), but this conflicts with how it was initially received in the lead, where you say it was received well.
5. Stable. No issues.
6. Illustrated: Looks good so far.

On hold

Not minor issues, but some rewriting needed per the comments above. Nothing insurmountable IMO, but the amount of work required will take you at least an hour. Let me know if you have further comments, questions, and concerns and I will address them. Viriditas (talk) 21:10, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

@Viriditas: I have been busy in real life. I think it would be best to fail this GAN, give me time to address this, and then have me resubmit this once I make the changes. Thank you for reviewing. Z. Patterson (talk) 21:11, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate your thoughts. I can do that, however in lieu of failing, how long do you estimate it would take for you to get back to this? I don't see why we can't leave it open. Viriditas (talk) 21:15, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't seem like you are around to respond, so I will fail it against my wishes, but according to your own. Viriditas (talk) 21:45, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.