The Blob

In rural Pennsylvania, teenagers Steve Andrews (Steve McQueen) and Jane Martin are parked in his car when a meteorite crashes over the hill. A local hillbilly pokes at it with a stick and goo grabs onto his hand. The teens find the suffering old man and bring him to doctor Hallen in town. It's the start as the blob consumes its victims and grows ever larger. This movie has two things going for it. It's got a good B-horror premise that is executed pretty well. It's also got a young McQueen early in his career. The writing can be clunky and the acting can be uneven. The boy is no picnic. The part I most appreciate is McQueen's self-doubt after the initial police station scene. I also appreciate that the adults are mostly reasonable with that one exception. Even that cop is reasonable in his fiery angriness. The Blob effects are not the most advanced but it does have great camp value. It's notable that the kids are the ones with the truth and the adults are reluctant to believe them. The theater stampede is the big iconic scene and the movie drags on a bit after that. This is a classic although not a classic for the critics.

The Blob is a terrible film, poorly scripted, poorly acted and void of any fun. The actual blob's the only thing worthy of any regard. You have adults as teens and the elderly as the parents. You have a Brady Bunch feel of everyone helping and loving one another, in a silly setting that's suppose to be fun. There isn't even a kill scene. A policeman playing chess over the phone for kicks in a cheesy monster movie WHAT! Watch "Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)" instead, trust me.

THE BLOB is a great horror movie, not merely because of the vividly horrific images of its nearly unstoppable, flesh-dissolving title character, but because it features a real societal message. It is, in many ways, a "feel-good horror film." The clever storyline is helped immeasurably by solid performances from the entire cast. The two romantic leads, Steve McQueen and Aneta Corsaut, bring surprising depth and sentimentality to the proceedings. They are misunderstood but very well-meaning young people, and it's very easy to root for them. This is a pro-society movie, and its juvenile delinquent characters cause trouble mainly out of boredom, not out of some malevolent character flaw. Steve McQueen's drag-racing rival almost appears to be an enemy early on in the proceedings, but quickly joins in McQueen's campaign to save the town from the oozing invader once he sees McQueen's seriousness. In this way, a character situation that at first appears to be cartoonish suddenly develops depth and human realism. The authorities' initial skepticism of the kids' wild claims is proved wrong--and once the threat is acknowledged by all, all conflict within the society disappears. This unification of purpose, and the validation of the "troublemaking" teens, becomes official when Aneta Corsaut's father breaks into the school to obtain the fire extinguishers needed to freeze the Blob. On any other day, breaking into the school would be considered an act of vandalism typical of a juvenile delinquent--on this particular day, it is a necessary action performed by an adult authority figure. At this turning point, it is clear that there are no lines of division between the young and the old. This is an unusual film in that it acknowledges the perception of a "generation gap" but suggests that it is more imaginary than real, and that given a real crisis, people will naturally band together to restore order. "The Blob" is a perfect tonic for the kind of depression that generally comes with a viewing of "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). Much has been made of the film's cheap but innovative (and effective!) visual effects. They are undeniably clever. A lot of the gravity-defying tricks we see the Blob perform were achieved with miniature sets designed to be rotated. The camera was typically attached to the sets in a very firmly "locked down" position (the lights had to be similarly attached so that the lighting remained steady as the room was turned this way and that). These scenes were often photographed one frame at a time as the room was slowly turned--the silicone blob oozed very slowly and its action needed to be sped up. In a way, this was similar to stop motion photography, but utilizing a blob of silicone rather than an articulated puppet. Even today, the effects are startling and bizarre. A very good film with an exploitative-sounding title, THE BLOB is a must-see.

Sci-fi "classic" that holds some cheesy appeal but really isn't that good, in my opinion. It stars a young Steve McQueen (although not as young as the part he's playing) and Aneta Corsaut (Helen Crump herself) as two teenagers who try to warn people in their hick town about a red blob that came to Earth in a meteorite. The blob keeps eating people and growing in size. Bad stuff. Like I said, this has some cheesy camp value for many (dig that theme song) but it has never done much for me. I actually enjoy the 1988 remake more, which is saying something considering how much I loathe remakes on average. By the way, I've seen this a few times over the years and this print I saw on TCM is easily the best I've seen. The colors are crisp and the picture is cleaner than any of the other versions I've seen. There are a lot of cheap DVDs of this one out there and they have some pretty lousy picture quality. Watching crap is bad enough but watching it in crappy quality is the pits. Anyway, this is famous enough that I think any fan of older science fiction and horror films should see it at least once. It's got some Ed Wood but not quite Roger Corman upside to it.

A giant amoeba-like alien terrorises the small community of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Jack H. Harris, a cheapo producer of such fodder like Schlock and Dinosaurs! couldn't believe his luck when Steve McQueen's popularity finally got his goo starring movie noticed. The Blob is not, as some 50s sci-fi lovers want you to believe, a quintessential movie in the pantheon of creature features and B movie sci-fi's. It's a silly movie that is nothing more than a teenager drive-in movie made to pass the time away necking with your respective partners. There's some value in McQueen's performance, who at least has an aura of believability about his character, but he's almost submerged and lost to the audience on account of being surrounded by bad actors and even worse writing. There's a groovy title tune to enjoy, where the names of Bacharach & David being involved opens the ears and raises a pleasing eyebrow. While the location work and colour photography is technically agreeable. But really there's not much else on offer here. No it isn't an astute movie about the looming threat of communism, and no it isn't a movie ahead of its time. It's campy fun for sure, but ultimately it's disposable at best. 4/10

I first saw "The Blob" on TV back in the '70s when I was about eight years old and it scared the unholy crap out of me. (I was a nervous type kid.) Seeing it again as a grown man, I smiled a lot at how relatively mild-mannered it is by today's standards, but "The Blob" is still a ton of fun. A young Steve McQueen (billed as "Steven" here for the first and only time in his career) plays the plucky, square-jawed teenage hero (despite the fact that he was 27 when he made the movie) who battles valiantly against the usual group of unbelieving grown-ups (who's gonna take the word of a teen-age hot rodder?) in order to save his small town from a man-eating alien hunk of goo that crashes to earth inside a meteor and begins absorbing townspeople at an alarming rate overnight. The title creature may resemble a wiggling, chewed up hunk of bubble gum, but you gotta love those attack scenes shot from The Blob's point of view (did they use a "Blob Cam?") and that oh-so-catchy theme song ("It creeps! It leaps! It slides, it glides across the floor!"). Admittedly "The Blob" suffers a bit from a few slow patches in the middle of the film where Steve and his fellow teens do more talking than anything else, but once the third act begins and the creature oozes into a sold-out midnight horror movie show at the local theatre, causing mass panic, it's golden. "The Blob" is an iconic piece of 50s sci-fi/horror, no doubt, and it's just as much fun to watch today as it must've been "back in the day." "The Blob" was remade in the late 80s by "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors" director Chuck Russell (I like that version as well), and now I'm hearing that Rob Zombie's next film project will be yet another new version of "The Blob." What puzzles and worries me is that Zombie says the first thing he's going to change in his remake is that there won't be "a big, red Blobby thing. I hate that." Now, how the hell are you going to make a "Blob" movie WITHOUT a big, red Blobby thing? Blasphemy!!!

Maybe because McQueen went on to be such a big star, perhaps because it was seen by many as kids on afternoon T.V.; but "The Blob" has become a favorite of many, the defining film of it's type. And that really too bad, because "The Blob" really stinks. Tedious, amateurish, poorly executed at every level. In one scene (due to the connection to producer Jack B. Harris) the audience is laughing at John Parker's fascinating "Daughter Of Horror" and one wants to gag at this derision for a vastly superior film. It's like watching every cliché of Drive-In teenage movies, and no doubt that is also why people like it. But it's like watching those clichés played in slow motion with no with and style. Which makes me suspicious this is the favorite of this sort of thing for people who really don't like this sort of thing.

This hugely entertaining b-movie starts off with an insanely catchy rockabilly song that perfectly sets the mood for what's to come. This movie never makes the mistake of taking itself seriously, which is what made it such an effective thriller. The acting was actually pretty stiff, and the main characters aren't that interesting, but the director is really good at keeping this viewer in suspense. The blob was pretty ridiculous, but I still tensed up whenever I saw it on screen. And like I said in the summary, this movie has a sense of humour, which is important in low budget science fiction. I also found the special effects to be clever. The Blob slithered under doorways, through vents, and up people's legs. It was kind of obvious how they did a lot of it,but I personally think that's part of the charm of pre-cgi effects. Bottom Line: If you're expecting great acting and character development, skip this, but if you like b- movies, it's a masterpiece.

I have a pretty high standard now for garbage-y movies. A movie has to be especially bad to knock off any of the current despised movies on my list. The Blob is positively awful for anything but inspiring you to insert vulgar lines between the bits of dialog. Although it's also possible that the movie is actually an ingenious tool to bore the living crap out of your date in 1958, so that making out with you seems like a decent alternative. As far as "bad" goes, I don't think I've ever seen a less artfully made movie. I also don't think it's possible to make a less artful movie in the future. A gelatinous space-turd grows as it eats the members of a town, while a cast of actors tries to outrebel 'Rebel Without a Cause.' Characters are so dense they can't even figure out they can stroll leisurely away from the largely immobile title organism. You'd actually have to watch an episode of Mr Ed to see worse writing than on display here. The plot progresses at a snails pace while characters process their thoughts at roughly the speed of a lumber flow. The movie is oddly obsessed with minutia; no one makes a move in this 'movie' until they announce it four times, discuss it twice, and have another character authorize it. Anyone in this movie, or anyone who went to see it and was entertained, has too much lead in their diet. If people were this dull and dim-witted in the 50s it would have single-handedly caused kinky sex to be invented. Somehow you can't buy a DVD of Zentropa or The Magnificent Ambersons but this dreck is available from the Criterion Collection!

I wasn't aware of Steve McQueen in 1958. I only knew that I was extremely frightened about going to see this film. (I'd been devastated by the movie "Trantula" at age seven . . . but I was ten now). The 1st scene where the Blob crawls up the farmer's probing stick and engulfs his hand was enough to make me want to leave the theater. But I stayed and suffered through each of our monster's attacks. I felt such horror when Steve and his girl barely made it out of the doctor's office (poor doc), and even more when The Blob entered a movie theater and devoured a large portion of the audience . . . so many in fact that IT oooooozzzzzzed out of the front doors, too huge now to fit through just one. It seemed indestructible and unlimited in growth potential, and when it trapped poor Steve in a sieve-like diner, he seemed like a sure dinner to be. To say that the Blob was cold would be a modern day description, but in the end, better icy than scaring and mentally rupturing little kids. I remember walking home that evening with my uncle Nick, trying to act brave. He knew I was in trouble, and when I got into bed that night I could not only feel the Blob in the room, but when I summoned up the courage to look down at the floor, there the red pulsating, heart-like hungry dude sat, waiting for me to try and get up and go to the bathroom. It took months to recover. I'm 57 years old now . . . I've made it. Of course The Blob wasn't destroyed.