But for decades, hardcore fans and B-movie archaeologists have whispered about something more: Rumored to contain an additional 15–20 minutes of excised footage, these scenes promise a darker, more coherent, and psychologically complex film that was butchered before reaching theaters. What exactly was cut, and why? Let’s descend into the genetic splicer and find out.

: The most recent restoration from Scream Factory provides the highest quality versions of these scenes, along with a comprehensive director's commentary by Peter Medak that discusses the reasons behind the cuts.

The Cutting Room Floor: Exploring the Deleted Scenes of Species II

The theatrical ending has Eve and Press inject Ross with a poison that causes his hyper-accelerated cells to collapse. He melts into a puddle. Fin. But the deleted stinger, which appears only in the novelization and a single storyboard, shows a janitor mopping up that puddle in the morgue weeks later. The mop head begins to twitch. A single drop of black ooze falls into a floor drain. Cut to: a rat drinking from a sewer puddle. The rat’s eyes glow red.

: An alternate take features a more prolonged and graphic version of Patrick attempting to slide his alien "tongue" into Dr. Laura Baker’s mouth. Special Effects & Unseen Footage

The theatrical cut opens with the manned mission to Mars discovering a bizarre, pulsating alien soil sample. The deleted version is far more Lovecraftian. Astronauts (including Ross) find a massive, buried cyclopean structure—a derelict alien birthing vessel. Inside, they don’t just collect spores; they witness a hallucination of an elder hybrid, a massive, immobile “Queen” figure that psychically implants the compulsion to return to Earth and seed the planet.