‘The Stuff’ Turns 40: 6 Surprising Facts About the Cult Classic Film

THE STUFF, US poster art, 1985. — New World Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

America got a sweet new sensation in The Stuff, a film in which a mysterious substance gained new life as an addictive dessert. But what consumers didn’t know was that the white, creamy, low-calorie treat marketed as “The Stuff” was actually an extraterrestrial organism that zombified humans before bursting out of their bodies. Oops!

The Stuff certainly had its horrific moments — did we mention the exploding bodies? — but writer/director Larry Cohen imagined it as a satire of consumerism and corporate greed. Unfortunately, The Stuff didn’t find many consumers upon its theatrical release on July 14, 1985, but it has since become a cult classic, and Arrow Video is releasing an ultra-HD special edition of the film in July. With The Stuff’s 40th anniversary upon us, check out fun facts about the film below.

1 Garrett Morris did The Stuff for the money

In a 2014 interview with The A.V. Club, Garrett Morris said he was “doing the money thing” when he agreed to star in The Stuff, adding that famed acting teachers Uta Hagen and Alice Spivak wouldn’t have been proud of that era of his career.

“But then you have [to] look at the paycheck … and I just cried all the way to the bank,” he said. “But it was actually nice doing that movie. I didn’t expect that movie to do anything, but it became a cult classic. A lot of people still check that out. So what I’m saying is that you really have to question the taste of a lot of these American moviegoers.”

2 Michael Moriarty and Paul Sorvino costarred in the film before Law & Order

THE STUFF, Paul Sorvino, Andrea Marcovicci, 1985

Everett Collection

In The Stuff, Michael Moriarty plays David, while Paul Sorvino plays Col. Spears. The two actors would later share the screen again in Law & Order’s second and third seasons, playing Executive ADA Ben Stone and Sergeant Phil Cerreta, respectively.

Other actors from The Stuff became Law & Order guest stars, including Eric Bogosian, Abe Vigoda and Rutanya Alda.

3 Mira Sorvino was an extra in The Stuff, joining her dad

Before she was an Oscar winner for Mighty Aphrodite and a star of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Mira Sorvino was a teenager who joined dad Paul Sorvino in The Stuff.

“I was a ‘Stuffie.’ I was one of the drones that had already been converted by the evil Stuff — the frozen yogurt or whatever that was taking over the world,” Sorvino told The A.V. Club in 2011, recalling the uncredited part. “I was wearing one of those odd suits and climbing a water tower. [Laughs] It didn’t require much actual performance.”

4 The “Where’s the Beef” lady has a cameo

Octogenarian manicurist-turned-actor Clara Peller, who had just become a television personality the year prior with her “Where’s the beef?” catchphrase in Wendy’s commercials, scored a cameo in the 1985 film.

In a faux commercial for the Stuff, Peller’s character is at a fancy restaurant with her husband, played by Vigoda. Displeased with her food, Peller’s character throws down her utensils and exclaims, “Where’s the Stuff?”

5 There’s a Nightmare on Elm Street connection

Just after Peller’s cameo, we get a terrifying scene in which the Stuff bursts out of a motel bed and attacks a man, pushing him up a wall, as seen in the clip above. That special effect was created with the same rotating set that the crew of A Nightmare on Elm Street had used for the scenes in which Amanda Wyss and Johnny Depp’s characters are killed.

“I kept the room because it cost me a lot of money,” mechanical special effects designer Jim Doyle told Rolling Stone in 2014. “I sunk like $35,000 into that thing, and I only had like a $57,000 or $60,000 budget. I was able to rent it out three times, so it paid for itself. It was used in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo and Larry Cohen’s The Stuff.”

Cohen reflected on the rotating-room effect in his biography, Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters, per Film School Rejects. “I was lucky that nobody got hurt,” he said. “But the scene looks great.”

6 Rupert Grint and Stranger Things gave shout-outs to the film

Harry Potter actor Rupert Grint listed his five favorite films for Rotten Tomatoes in 2010, and The Stuff made the cut. “I’m a big B-movie fan, and for me, this ticks every B-movie box,” he said of the film. “It must be the most original idea for a monster — an evil mass-produced dessert. It’s got the strangest characters I’ve ever seen in a film, which makes it a forever favorite of mine.”

Then, in 2019, The Stuff got more exposure, this time in Stranger Things’ third season. It’s one of the films playing at the Starcourt Mall, one of Season 3’s main locations. That third season is set in the summer of 1985, so the timing lines up, but as Screen Rant points out, both Stranger Things and The Stuff feature a sentient blob that possesses human bodies.