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Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.News Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy / Yasujiro Ozu's Takkan KozoWe can hardly think of a better news story: a lost Yasujiro Ozu film entitled Takkan Kozo (or "A Straight Forward Boy") has been found and restored. We're also delighted to hear that Will Ferrell will be reprising his famed Ron Burgundy character in a new podcast entitled The Ron Burgundy Podcast. Back in 2014, we reviewed the most recent cinematic entry in the Anchorman universe. Recommended VIEWINGThe first trailer for László Nemes formally expressive and experimentative historical drama Sunset, which we caught at Venice earlier this year.A PSA to send your parents ahead of the holidays...I’m taking a quick break from filming to tell you the best way to watch Mission: Impossible Fallout (or any movie you love) at home. pic.twitter.

Sony Pictures Television and free streaming TV service Pluto TV have signed a content distribution deal that will bring Bewitched, The Blob, Starship Troopers and more than 200 other “evergreen” movie and TV titles to Pluto’s library.

The movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment and classic TV from Sony Pictures Television will be programmed across Pluto’s thematically organized and programmed original channels.

“Sony Pictures has entertained audiences for decades with coveted and acclaimed film and television properties, and we are delighted to bring them aboard and introduce this incredible slate of evergreen content to our viewers,” states Amy Kuessner, Svp Content Partnerships at Pluto TV.

Pluto TV’s offerings include more than 100 live, linear and curated channels, including mainstream network fare, niche programming and thousands of movies on demand.

A sampling of the Sony Pictures titles now in Pluto’s orbit: The Babysitters Club,...

The King of Cool is certainly not a new concept in Hollywood. We've seen it used in reference to Marlon Brando (Streetcar Named Desire—era), Clint Eastwood (still kickin' it so many decades later), and, of course, the late James Dean. But you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who has held onto that mantle longer than Steve McQueen. And this despite the fact he's been gone for nearly 40 years and that his first leading man role was in a movie called The Blob. The natural question to ask is why? What was it about Steve McQueen that has stood him apart from virtually everyone? Journalist/author Marshall Terrill is the guy who probably knows McQueen better than anyone without actually knowing him. He has either written or co-written half-a-dozen biographical books on the subject, with another half dozen on the way. "There is such a need for McQueen," he exclusively tells Closer.

Friday night Twilight Zone reruns, Saturday afternoon Frankenstein matinees, and Sunday morning Godzilla flicks; these were the films that introduced my lifelong love affair with horror films. My parents were the influencers, the ones that nurtured my fascinations with the fantastic, weird, and wonderful world of genre film. I was taught from them to respect the classics, the films of Hitchcock, the genius of Lon Chaney, and the storytelling of Sterling, but they also emphasized an understanding and study of the past. These guidelines have, and continue, to shape my thoughts and ideas about film.

But in 1988, the introduction to the sinister and suspenseful nature of horror was still fresh for a middle-schooler who couldn't get enough of watching scary movies in the dark with stove-top popcorn and Rc Cola. Growing up in a lower- to middle-class family with young siblings and hard-working parents didn’t leave a lot of...

Ever since Scream Factory released The Return of the Living Dead on a Collector's Edition Blu-ray back in 2016, fans of the beloved zombie franchise have eagerly requested the same high-def treatment for the first sequel, Return of the Living Dead Part II. This August, the wait will be over, and Scream Factory has now revealed the full list of special features for the anticipated Collector's Edition Blu-ray of the 1988 sequel:

Press Release: The zombies have returned! Writer/director Ken Wiederhorn churns a fun-and-gory spin on the zombie apocalypse movie in cult classic Return Of The Living Dead Part II, starring James Karen, Thom Matthews, Dana Ashbrook (Twin Peaks), Marsha Dietlein (Little Children), Philip Bruns (Flash Dance), and Michael Kenworthy (The Blob). On August 14, 2018, Scream Factory™ is proud to present Return Of The Living Dead Part II Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, which includes new 2K scan of the film, new interviews with cast and crew,...

It's time for the Corpse Club to celebrate thirty years of Michael Myers' blood-stained homecoming, the evil possession of a Good Guys doll, and many more iconic horror characters and cinematic moments on a new "Class of ’88" episode of Daily Dead's podcast!

Corpse Club co-hosts Heather Wixson, Patrick Bromley, Scott Drebit, and Jonathan James celebrate horror movies released thirty years ago on a special "Class of ’88" episode of Daily Dead's official podcast! Join the ghoulish gang as they discuss some of the most memorable horror movies from 1988, including Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Child's Play, Phantasm II, The Blob remake, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, Return of the Living Dead Part II, and many more! So sit back, relax, and join the party as the Corpse Club celebrates three decades of thrills and chills from the Class of ’88!

You can listen to the new episode of Corpse Club right now on iTunes,...

Hey South Florida! Get ready for some genre goodness from the Popcorn Frights Film Festival. Set to unfold from August 10 to 16 -- as residents surely know, a perfect time of the year to spend all day in cool movie theaters -- the festival will open with the world premiere of Havana Darkness, which claims to be the first English-language horror film to be short in Cuba. On the same evening, the highly-acclaimed Anna and the Apocalypse will make its South Florida premiere, and so will Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich -- but only for those who enjoy gruesome fun. Filmmaker Chuck Russell will be celebrated, with screenings of his version of The Blob (better than the original) and A Nightmare on Elm Street...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

MoreHorror.com

Hdnet Movies has announced the complete line-up for "Rob Zombie's 13 Nights of Halloween," hosted by the horror icon himself, kicking off Thursday, Oct. 19 with his hit film "The Devil's Rejects" at 9pE.

Other films featured during the holiday stunt, which culminates in a 24-hour marathon on Halloween, include Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left," Jonathan Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs," Steve McQueen in the original 1958 "The Blob" and more.

The full schedule and official details can be found below.

From The Press Release

“The Great American Nightmare” comes to Hdnet Movies this October, as the network unleashes Rob Zombie’s 13 Nights Of Halloween—airing every night at 9pE from Thursday, October 19 through Tuesday, October 31. The Halloween event puts the spotlight on 13 films hosted by heavy metal mastermind and acclaimed horror icon Rob Zombie. The event kicks off with Zombie’s celebrated sophomore opus The Devil’S Rejects,...

B-movie classic The Blob is getting another remake. Why? I couldn’t tell you, but here we are. Goldcrest Films is moving forward with the project and the studio has set The Expendables 2 helmer Simon West to direct.

The 1958 cult classic, directed by Irvin Yeaworth, starred a young Steve McQueen as a teenager whose small Pennsylvania hometown is unexpectedly threatened when a gelatinous alien life-form emerges from a meteor and begins to consume the townfolk, growing larger in size with every new victim and oozing forward with no indication of stopping.

The Blob, though received with mixed reviews at the time of its release, is now held up as a prime example of B-movie entertainment. It birthed a sequel, too, in the form of Larry Hagman’s 1972 flick Beware! The Blob, and was previously remade in 1988 by Chuck Russell.

Back when this new version was announced, West said the...

It creeps and leaps and slides and glides along the wall… and then it eats your face, dude. Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda’s ultimate monster mastication epic now looks sensationally gory, thanks to a full restoration. Arrow’s disc has pretty much everything, including two transfers and two audio commentaries. And Savant has a guilty admission to make — it was the tripe, the whole tripe, and nothing but the tripe.

Caltiki, The Immortal Monster

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1959 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 76 min. / Caltiki, il mostro immortale / Street Date April 11, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: John Merivale, Didi Sullivan (Perego), Gérard Haerter, Daniela Rocca, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Daniele Vargas, Arturo Dominici, Gay Pearl

Cinematography: John Foam (Mario Bava)

Special Effects: Mario Bava

Film Editor: Mario Serandrei

Original Music: Roberto Nicolosi

Written by Filippo Sanjust

Produced by Bruno Vailati

Directed by Robert Hamton (Riccardo Freda) & Mario Bava

Who says that Blu-ray is dying?...

Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This April will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Monday, April 3 The Chaos of Cool: A Tribute to Seijun Suzuki

In February, cinema lost an icon of excess, Seijun Suzuki, the Japanese master who took the art of the B movie to sublime new heights with his deliriously inventive approach to narrative and visual style. This series showcases seven of the New Wave renegade’s works from his career breakthrough in the sixties: Take Aim at the Police Van (1960), an off-kilter whodunit; Youth of the Beast (1963), an explosive yakuza thriller; Gate of Flesh (1964), a pulpy social critique; Story of a Prostitute (1965), a tragic romance; Tokyo Drifter...

Jack H. Harris, who produced the 1958 camp-horror classic The Blob along with a sequel and a remake, died today at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 98. His daughter, Lynda Resnick, confirmed the news to the Associated Press. Born on November 28, 1918, in Philadelphia, Harris got his showbiz start doing vaudeville as a young boy before serving in Would War II. He worked in movie publicity and distribution before branching out to producing. His first film was The Blob…...

Jack H. Harris, who produced the low-budget 1958 horror classic The Blob, died Tuesday. He was 98.

Harris died of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills, his daughter, Lynda Resnick, announced.

Paramount's The Blob, directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., starred Steve McQueen in his big-screen debut. In the film, an oozing, amoeba-like alien crashes on Earth in a meteorite, then expands as it sucks up people and menaces a small town in Pennsylvania.

The movie, made for just $110,000, caught on with audiences and grossed more than $3 million. It also spawned a 1972 sequel — directed...

Gather your fright-loving family members, fill your cup to the brim with egg nog, and find a comfy spot around the TV (or computer) screen, because enough horror movies to fill Santa's sleigh are coming to the streaming service Shudder this December, including Rob Zombie's 31, Bob Clark's Black Christmas, and many more.

Press Release: This December, there’s oh so much under Shudder’s tree. But before you get unwrapping, let’s shake the boxes a bit… We have something special for everyone, inside.

Love clowns? Coming exclusively to Shudder is Rob Zombie’s latest, 31, a vicious and characteristically Zombie film. Which is to say it’s dirty, mean and, from the get, right up in your face.

Looking to stay in? We’ve got a very special Shudder exclusive in Shrew's Nest. Directed by Juanfer Andrés & Esteban Roel (and produced by Alex de la Iglesia), this elegant,...

“It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor. Right through the door. And all around the wall. A splotch, a blotch. Be careful of the Blob!”

The Blob screens Wednesday, August 3rd at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, Mo 63143) as part of Webster University’s Award-Winning Strange BrewFilm Series. The screening is Sponsored by Planet Score Records

The Blob is chiefly remembered now for launching Steve McQueen’s career. Soon after the release of this film, he was offered the role of Josh Randall on the hit TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive, and super-stardom was only a few years away. Here, billed as “Steven” McQueen, he leads a pack of teenagers who are determined to stop the Blob from devouring their small town. The main problem is that the authorities (i.e. the local police) refuse to believe their story...

Years after Steve McQueen’s character helped stop the Blob from absorbing an entire small town, the gelatinous terror returned to ooze eerily in Beware! The Blob (aka Son of Blob) Earlier this year, Kino Lorber announced that they were releasing the 1972 sequel on Blu-ray and DVD, and now they have revealed the debut date, cover art, and special features for the home media release.

From Kino Lorber: “Coming September 20th on Blu-ray and DVD!

Brand New 2016 HD Master!

Beware! The Blob (1972) aka Son of Blob!

Special Features:

Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith Alternate Title Sequence Trailers”

Beware! The Blob stars Robert Walker Jr., Gwynne Gilford, Godfrey Cambridge, Carol Lynley, Larry Hagman, Dick Van Patten, Shelley Berman, Gerrit Graham, Richard Stahl, Richard Webb, Sig Haig, and Burgess Meredith. The sequel was directed by Larry Hagman from a screenplay by Anthony Harris and Jack Woods. For those unfamiliar with the film,...

Our series on big-screen remakes continues with a cult horror film that kickstarted the illustrious career of Steve McQueen. This week, Cinelinx looks at The Blob (1958 vs. 1988). Come inside to see how these two films stack up.

The original version of The Blob was a low-budget monster film made for $110,000. The titular creature was originally supposed to be called The Molten Meteor Monster, which then was changed to The Mass, which turned into The Glob, and Finally The Blob. The film's tongue-in-cheek title song was written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David, which became a hit. The movie was directed by Irvin Yeaworth who specialized in directing motivational educational and religious films, so this was a departure for him. The film was a moderate success, grossing over $4 million, although the critics weren’t overly kind. It has a 67% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite its cheesiness, its reputation has grown over...

Each week, the fine folks at Fandor add a number of films to their Criterion Picks area, which will then be available to subscribers for the following twelve days. This week, the Criterion Picks focus on eight films from the Criterion Collection that were later remade.

Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.

The Blob, the Horror film by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.

A cult classic of gooey greatness, The Blob follows the havoc wreaked on a small town by an outer-space monster with neither soul nor vertebrae, with Steve McQueen playing the rebel teen who tries to warn the residents about the jellylike invader.

The Hidden Fortress, the Japanese Action/Adventure film by Akira Kurosawa

This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’ Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor,...

Hell's Kitchen: Soul stew image likely from the 1922 Benjamin Christensen horror classic 'Häxan / Witchcraft Through the Ages.' Day of the Dead post: Cinema's Top Five Scariest Living Dead We should all be eternally grateful to the pagans, who had the foresight to come up with many (most?) of the overworked Western world's religious holidays. Thanks to them, besides Easter, Christmas, New Year's, and possibly Mardi Gras (a holiday in some countries), we also have Halloween, All Saints' Day, and the Day of Dead. The latter two are public holidays in a number of countries with large Catholic populations. Since today marks the end of the annual Halloween / All Saints' Day / Day of the Dead celebrations, I'm posting my revised and expanded list of the movies' Top Five Scariest Living Dead. Of course, by that I don't mean the actors listed below were dead when the movies were made.

Warner Bros.

The trouble with this business of watching movies is that, sooner or later, you encounter people that view films not as escapism, but as an art form.

You know the type: they have PhDs and MAs, use big words and probably shook Jean-Luc Goddard’s hand one time. In their circle, you’re obliged to say that you loved Francois Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), but if you start talking about monster movies, they’ll look at you as though you just asked them to pull your finger.

Truffaut’s movie may have helped start the French New Wave, but if you want a trend-setting movie with teenage leads, you need look no further than The Blob. Not only is this the archetypal movie about kids saving their town from a monster from space, but it features the King Of Cool himself, Steve McQueen,...

Once you’re absorbed by its terror, you can’t scream. We'll see if Samuel L. Jackson can avoid the slimy grasp of the galaxy's most feared gelatinous alien, as it's been revealed that the veteran actor will star in Goldcrest Films' remake of 1958's The Blob.

According to ScreenDaily, Jackson will star in The Blob remake as "a biochemistry professor attempting to thwart the other-worldly predator discovered deep within the earth." The film begins shooting this fall with Simon West (The Expendables 2, Con Air) in the director's chair.

Linking the upcoming remake to the original, Jack Harris, the producer of 1958's The Blob, will be one of the executive producers of the remake. Also producing the project are Richard Saperstein (Se7en, The Mist) and Brian Witten (Final Destination, 2009's Friday the 13th), both of whom have been behind strong horror genre offerings from the last two decades. They...

In news to warm the hardest of hearts, Simon West's upcoming remake of sci-fi/horror classic The Blob has just announced its first major cast member. Samuel L. Jackson has signed up to fight the giant space jelly.The original Blob came from space, while the underrated '80s version was a Cold War experiment gone wrong. The latest incarnation, West has confirmed, will be "more sci-fi" again, and today's brief new synopsis suggests that the entity will be discovered "deep within the Earth".Jackson will play a biochemistry professor, racing to find a way to shut the wobbly predator down. "Get that motherfucking Blob out of my motherfucking lab!" He might say.The first Blob introduced Steve McQueen to the moviegoing world. Larry Hagman directed sequel Beware! The Blob in the '70s. The surprisingly excellent '80s remake starred Kevin Dillon and had a screenplay by Frank Darabont.

Out on the publicity trail for his Jason Statham thriller Wild Card, director Simon West has been fielding questions about his next project, a remake of the '50s horror The Blob. Explaining his approach, and the angles that most attracted him, he promises that it will be "on a much bigger canvas than the originals".The first Blob introduced Steve McQueen to the moviegoing world. Larry Hagman directed sequel Beware! The Blob in the '70s. The surprisingly excellent '80s remake starred Kevin Dillon and had a screenplay by Frank Darabont. The latest version was previously growing under the Weinsteins' roof at Dimension (Rob Zombie flirted with it for a while), but is now taking shape at Goldcrest.The original Blob came from space, while the '80s version was a Cold War experiment gone wrong. The latest incarnation, West confirms, will be "more sci-fi" again."[The previous films] were much more small,...

Director Simon West has dropped a gamut of new details of his forthcoming reboot of The Blob. The remake was announced in January of this year and at the time, the Con Air helmer revealed that his take on the 1950s classic would embrace current technological advances to truly revitalize the seminal property. “With modern CGI we can now fully realize the potential of The Blob,” he stated at the time, and has since followed up that tidbit while chatting with the folks over at Den Of Geek.

The 1958 original starred Steve McQueen as a youngster in a small Pennsylvanian town overrun by a gelatinous goop – The Blob – that begins to transmogrify as it consumes the townsfolk. Will West’s version spin that similar fable or follow the 1988 remake?

Yeah, it’s definitely going to be on a much bigger canvas than the originals, which were much more small, niche genre horror movies.

Simon West has signed up to direct a remake of The Blob.

The Con Air and Expendables 2 filmmaker has teamed up with producers Richard Saperstein and Brian Witten (Devil's Knot) for the project, which may begin shooting this summer.

"With modern CGI we can now fully realise the potential of The Blob," West told Deadline. "The world I create will be totally believable, immersive and emotionally satisfying. It's a thrill to introduce an enduring icon to a wider audience and a whole new era of fans."

Steve McQueen starred in the original 1958 B-movie horror, in what was his first leading role.

The Blob centred around a gelatinous alien goo that arrived on Earth via a meteorite and began increasing in size each time it consumed people.

Dallas star Larry Hagman directed a low-budget sequel in 1972 titled Beware! The Blob, while Frank Darabont co-wrote a remake in 1988.

Rob Zombie also planned...

According to Deadline, director Simon West (Expendables 2) will helm the remake of the 1958 campy horror film, The Blob. Co-produced by Goldcrest Films, Taewon Entertainment and A-List Corporation, the film is expected to start shooting in the summer.

The original film, which starred Steve McQueen, tells the story of an alien gelatinous form that wrecks havoc in Downingtown, Pa by eating the people that live there. The film had a sequel in 1972 called Beware! The Blob and was first remade in 1988. Regarding the new film, director

Simon West said the following:

“With modern CGI we can now fully realize the potential of The Blob. The world I create will be totally believable, immersive and emotionally satisfying. It’s a thrill to introduce an enduring icon to a wider audience and a whole new era of fans.”

Meanwhile, Pascal Degove, Managing Director of Goldcrest said:

“Simon West has a unique gift for blending cutting edge effects,...

The first Blob introduced Steve McQueen to the moviegoing world. Larry Hagman directed sequel Beware! The Blob in the '70s. The surprisingly excellent '80s remake starred Kevin Dillon and had a screenplay by Frank Darabont. And after years in development, another new version of The Blob is inching glutinously ever closer towards us. Simon West (Con Air, Expendables 2) has just signed up to direct the film.The Blob was previously growing under the Weinsteins' roof at Dimension, but is now taking shape at Goldcrest. Rob Zombie was attached to the Weinsteins' version for a while, and seemed to be talking about dispensing with any notions of big, red blobbiness. "That's the first thing I want to change," he said. "That gigantic Jello-looking thing might have been scary to audiences in the 1950s, but people would laugh now." He eventually moved on, however, presumably reasoning that another remake after...

B-movie classic The Blob is getting another remake. Why? I couldn’t tell you, but here we are. Goldcrest Films is moving forward with the project, which the studio has set The Expendables 2 helmer Simon West to direct.

The 1958 cult classic, directed by Irvin Yeaworth, starred a young Steve McQueen as a teenager whose small Pennsylvania hometown is unexpectedly threatened when a gelatinous alien life-form emerges from a meteor and begins to consume the townfolk, growing larger in size with every new victim and oozing forward with no indication of stopping.

The Blob, though received with mixed reviews at the time of its release, is now held up as a prime example of B-movie entertainment. It birthed a sequel, Larry Hagman’s 1972 Beware! The Blob, and was previously remade in 1988 by Chuck Russell. Producers on this remake are Richard Saperstein and Brian Witten.

West said of his new take:...

Anytime I’ve been asked about movies that should be remade, I’m pretty sure I’ve brought up The Blob. It’s the perfect property to go through the recycle bin, and this is coming from someone who likes the 1958 original and even more so the underrated 1988 version. It’s a horror scenario involving a gelatinous mass that rolls around and engulfs people. There’s an iconicity to the creature but not in a way that’s necessarily assigned to a time or storyline or anything else that fans can really take to their hearts. It could be redone at least once a generation, if not once a decade. So, I welcome the announcement that another remake of The Blob is finally on the move, and am fine with the choice of Simon West to helm this baby. The director of Con Air, Tomb Raider: Lara Croft and The Expendables 2 is hardly a great...

Once you’re absorbed by its terror, you can’t even scream. The slimy mass that is the Blob first thrilled audiences when it took on Steve McQueen on the big screen in 1958. It next oozed into cinemas via the 1972 sequel, Beware! The Blob, before being reborn in a 1988 remake directed by Chuck Russell and co-written by Frank Darabont. Proving that it’s still a relentless alien amoeba, 1958’s The Blob is being remade once again.

Goldcrest Films is moving forward with a remake of The Blob, with Simon West (The Expendables 2, Con Air) lined up for the director’s chair and shooting slated to begin this summer. Modern-day special effects capabilities are expected to bring the Blob to life like never before, and Chris Haney (Avatar, Avengers Assemble) will oversee the VFX in post-production.

Linking the upcoming remake to the original, Jack Harris, the producer of 1958’s The Blob,...

Exclusive: It crawls! It creeps! It’s getting a remake. Goldcrest Films is set to co-produce an update of 1958 horror/sci-fi classic The Blob. Simon West (Wild Card, The Mechanic, Expendables 2) is directing with principal photography eyed for this summer. Producers are Richard Saperstein and Brian Witten (Cell). Korea’s Taewon Entertainment and A-List Corporation are co-financing with Goldcrest.

The original film, which was released by Paramount, starred a young Steve McQueen. The story sees a gelatinous alien life-form emerge from a crashed meteor and begin to ooze through Downingtown, Pa, eating the townsfolk as it goes. Check out the original trailer below.

Goldcrest is also handling international sales and distribution and will launch the film at next month’s European Film Market in Berlin. UTA is brokering U.S. distribution rights; the agency reps West.

A 1972 sequel, Beware! The Blob, was helmed by Larry Hagman, and in 1988, Chuck Russell...

Simon West ("The Mechanic," "The Expendables 2") is slated to direct the latest version of the 1958 horror/sci-fi classic "The Blob" for Goldcrest Films.

A young Steve McQueen starred in the original film about a gelatinous alien life-form emerging from a crashed meteor. It begins to ooze through a Pennsylvania town, eating the townsfolk as it goes.

That film got a sequel in 1972, but others will only be familiar with Chuck Russell's more horror-toned take with the remake from 1988. Whilst that film was a mix of classic effects techniques, the new one will be CG heavy. West says:

"With modern CGI we can now fully realize the potential of The Blob. The world I create will be totally believable, immersive and emotionally satisfying. It’s a thrill to introduce an enduring icon to a wider audience and a whole new era of fans.”

Richard Saperstein and Brian Witten will...

It's been announced Goldcrest Films will co-produce a remake of 1958's The Blob. Simon West (The Expendables 2, Con Air) is directing the movie, and filming for it could start sometime this summer. The original sci-fi horror movie starred Steve McQueen, and featured an alien amoeba from outer space that increased its size as it consumed people in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. A sequel called Beware! The Blob was released in 1972, and Chuck Russell directed the 1988 remake....

With Halloween fast approaching, EW is picking the five best films in a variety of different horror movie categories. Each day, we’ll post our top picks from one specific group—say, vampire movies or slasher flicks—and give you the chance to vote on which is your favorite. On Oct. 31, EW will reveal your top choices. Today, we’re ready to talk about some extraterrestrial horrors. In space, no one can hear you scream. But on Earth, aliens have been making film audiences hoarse for decades. Sure, there are plenty of friendly, E.T.-esque extraterrestrials—but more often than not,...

Don’t be fooled by its festive cotton candy pink color, it will viciously pull you down a sink drain if it gets the chance. Thirty years after taking on Steve McQueen, the Blob made a comeback in a Chuck Russell-directed remake that’s coming out soon in a limited edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time and we have a look at the release’s cover art and list of bonus features.

Coming out on Blu-ray for the first time on October 14th, with a freshly restored print from Sony, Twilight Time’s limited edition release of The Blob (1988) will be available to pre-order beginning September 24th at ScreenArchives.com. Only 5,000 copies will be available, so expect this title to sell out quickly.

The Blob (1988) Blu-ray Special Features (via Shock Till You Drop):

Isolated Score Track Audio Commentary with Director Chuck Russell and Shock Till You Drop’s Ryan Turek...

Blu-ray Release Date: Oct. 14, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Twilight Time

Beware the glob that is The Blob!

The 1988 gooey horror movie The Blob is a remake of the equally gelatinous 1958 film of the same name which starred a young Steve McQueen.

The new version of the movie follows the same general plot of the original: A deadly mucilaginous ( a Google thesaurus function word) creature from another planet (possibly…) makes its way to Earth, where it makes its way into a small town, envelops everything in its path and grows at a startling rate. A pair of teenagers (Entourage’s Kevin Dillon and the Saw franchise’s Shawnee Smith) try in vain to warn the townsfolk, who refuse to take them seriously.

Co-written by Frank Darabont in one of his earliest projects prior to The Shawshank Redemption and Walking Dead fame, the movie also stars Donovan Leitch, Jeffrey DeMunn (another Walking Deader), Bill Moseley,...

Don’t let its festive cotton candy pink color fool you: it will pull you down a sink drain if it gets the chance. The gooey mass that is the Blob first thrilled audiences when it took on Steve McQueen in 1958. Thirty years later, The Blob was reborn in a remake directed by Chuck Russell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Frank Darabont. Russell recently did a Q&A at a 35mm presentation of The Blob and discussed working on the movie at the forefront of his filmmaking career.

The Q&A was co-hosted by Ryan Turek of Shock Till You Drop and Joshua Miller of Friday Night Frights and took place at The Cinefamily in Los Angeles. Chuck Russell discussed a range of topics that should really interest fans of 1988′s The Blob, from the massive practical effects undertaking, to the process of remaking a classic film, to who was...

It’s Friday the 13th and a full moon tonight so we let the crazies loose and are bring back one of our favorite staff posts, The Thirteen! If you aren’t familiar with The Thirteen, it was initially conceived to be a Top 13 list of films about a certain topic. Sadly, we started it last September and it fell by the wayside. Read our past two posts:

13 Songs Used in Films That Take On a Haunting Feeling

13 Female Villains & Anti-Heroes in Film

Xtro

contribution by Jeremy Jones

A young boy sees his dad abducted by some unseen force. Three years later a meteor hits in the middle of the woods and brings something icky. Written, directed and scored by Harry Bromley Davenport, Xtro is a demented labor of love. The first twenty minutes are the most chunk blowing worthy moments. Including perhaps the grossest thing ever, walking in on your parents having sex.

Once you’re absorbed by the terror, you can’t even scream. The slimy mass that is the Blob first thrilled audiences when it took on Steve McQueen in 1958. Thirty years later, The Blob was reborn in a remake that co-starred The Walking Dead‘s Jeffrey DeMunn and was co-written by Frank Darabont. Twilight Time is bringing 1988′s The Blob to Blu-ray, and its release date should be perfect timing for horror hounds.

Blu-ray.com reports that Twilight Time will release The Blob (1988) on Blu-ray for the first time just a couple weeks before Halloween, on October 14th. The R-rated remake with a runtime of 95 minutes is getting the Blu-ray treatment along with 10 other new September and October offerings from Twilight Time. With a dedicated fan base just itching to get their hands on a Blu-ray copy of 1988′s The Blob, Twilight Time has increased their stock from 3,000 units to 5,000 units for the title.

As a composer, I'm quick to acknowledge the role of music in setting the tone for a horror film, and while theme songs with lyrics and vocals can be just as effective as an instrumental score, there are definitely risks involved: along with clothing and hairstyles, songs tend to anchor a film to the year it was made, and as tastes change, a pop tune can be exposed as a quaint and silly relic of its decade. Then again, some of those tracks were pretty goofy to begin with, and nothing could have saved them. With that said, I love every one of these oddball themes to death (even the truly painful ones), so I'd like to share with you the best of the weirdest, straight from one of my more... uh, let's say “eccentric” party playlists. Let's rock! Fat Boys: “Are You Ready for Freddy?” (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master,...

It's not all that often that people who have brought us iconic horror films are given stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which makes us all the more proud today of Jack L. Harris, the producer of the original 1958 version of The Blob. Read on for the exciting details!

Variety reports that Harris is being honored with a prestigious star on the Walk of Fame today. Now 95-years-old, the legendary movie mogul has produced, marketed, distributed, written and directed scores of films over the years, but The Blob marked his debuted on the Hollywood scene, and is also the one he's most known for.

The B-movie smash marked Steve McQueen’s first starring role, as a teenager who battled an undulating, man-eating mass from a crashed asteroid. Harris persuaded a sleepy Christian-themed film company in Pennsylvania to put its trained technicians to work on the movie, which was shot...

When a horror film sports the tagline "Based on a true story" or "Inspired by actual events," the terror quotient almost always goes up, and the films often does big box office numbers. A great recent example of this phenomenon is The Conjuring, which cleaned up during its theatrical run this summer. The idea that a film is rooted in some level of truth makes the experience more intense; even if the plot is 99% fiction, the feature is still enriched by the knowledge that there is even a shred of truth to what you are about to watch. In March, we ran a list showcasing ten terrifying movies based on actual events, and was succeeded by a follow up installment in September. We’re now proud to bring you ten more horror films that take a cue from reality.

You can see part one here and part two here.

Silence...

The classic sci-fi / horror tale The Blob is about a gelatinous ball of goo that consumes everyone it can, growing bigger and hungrier as it does. It's a pretty out-there concept, so you may be surprised to find out that The Blob is based on a true story.

It might be more accurate to say that The Blob is based on a true police report. Whether or not the event actually happened has never been confirmed. In 1950 in Pennsylvania, two veteran police officers saw something fall from the sky. They described it as a "large, glittering mass drifting to earth," and when they found the landing spot in a field, they discovered a "quivering purple mound of jelly" that glittered in the light of their flashlights. It seemed to pulsate on its own, and when the cops turned off their flashlights, the mass seemed to glow on its own. For...

Carlisle, Iowa — Russell S. Doughten Jr., whose series of evangelical films about a post-rapture Earth was screened to millions of Christians in churches around the world, has died. He was 86.

Doughten died Monday at his home in Carlisle following a long battle with a kidney ailment, Peterson Funeral Home confirmed Saturday.

Although Doughten worked on various secular films – he helped produce the 1958 science fiction classic "The Blob," among other films – he was best known for his four-part film series about what life on Earth might be like after the rapture, or end of times, The Des Moines Register reported ( ). Evangelicals think true believers will ascend to heaven and those left behind will fight a war between Jesus and the Antichrist. http://dmreg.co/19EAcxG

The series, which began with 1972's "A Thief in the Night," follows a young woman who is among the non-believers left behind. Doughten appeared in the...

Top 10 Aliya Whiteley 6 Aug 2013 - 07:06

Hitchcock's Vertigo may have dominated 1958, but that year was full of other films about fear and loathing. Here's Aliya's top 10...

There are so many things to be scared of. Apart from the obvious perils, such as large spiders, venomous snakes, and dentists, there are less tangible things to panic about. Fear of growing old. Fear of falling into poverty. Fear of thermonuclear war.

In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo was released. It’s very good at making the watcher feel very uncomfortable, through the camera angles and the great score by Bernard Herrmann. But it’s not just the audience who gets to feel scared; it’s there in the script too. Scottie (played by James Stewart) suffers from vertigo, but he’s also afraid of his past, and of the pain of loss. He’s been hurt so badly before that he’ll...

What happened to the horror genre? Beyond the slasher pic, which has barely survived in its own right from its glory days of Jason and Michael Myers, the horror genre has been overrun by ghost stories competing for which of them can best score a scare by having something jump out suddenly to a spike in music cues. The days of the classic monster film are gone, with the occasional venture like The Host or Matt Reeves's middling Cloverfield and J.J. Abrams's Super 8. Nowadays if the final appearance of a horror beastie is poorly done it's somehow a meta-commentary on the genre itself or supposedly tongue-in-cheek throwback to the days of men in rubber suits. Except, if films like The Blob remind us of anything, it's that even so-called B-movies did some pretty innovative effects work in their day (like using a giant mass of silicon manipulated...

Here's a Planet Fury-approved selection of notable genre DVD releases for the months of February and March 2013.

The Blob (1958) Criterion Collection Blu-ray & DVD Available Now

This entertaining low-budget favorite gets some well-deserved respect from the folks at Criterion. A gelatinous creature from outer space begins to devour the inhabitants of a small town. Each time it consumes a new body, it grows bigger. A couple of teens (including the wooden Steve McQueen) attempt to warn the town and save the population from certain blech! Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. directs the mayhem with a sure hand while Bart Sloane's great special effects still pack a punch. Followed by the bizarre comedy sequel, Son of Blob, in the early ’70s (directed by Larry Hagman!) and a great, underrated remake in 1988 by Chuck Russell.

Special Features:

* New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

* Two audio commentaries: one by producer Jack H. Harris...

Self-professed cinephiles the world over appreciate the Criterion Collection's mission to preserve classic and contemporary films deemed culturally or artistically important. Every month they select somewhere between 4 to 6 features and digitally remaster them for new Blu-ray and DVD releases to ensure that some of the world's best cinematic works survive the transfer to today's high-definition era. This March the releases include the horror classic The Blob (starring a young Steve McQueen), the celebrated British dramatic comedy The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Fritz Lang's war drama Ministry of Fear, the Charlie Chaplin comedy Monsieur Verdoux, Terrence Malick's directorial debut Badlands, and Robert Bresson's jailbreak drama A Man Escaped.

For all the details on each of these releases.

Read more...

Life of Pi I don't always include the 3-D Blu-ray version when I put together this column, but with Life of Pi that's sort of the whole point right? I mean, if anyone talks about this movie the first, and sometimes only, thing they talk about are the visuals. Personally it was only an "okay" movie that I didn't really think amounted to much, but I expect it will have a rather impressive life on the home video market following its Oscar wins.

 

The Blob (Criterion Collection) Blu-ray I watched this Blu-ray on Sunday night and listened to the commentaries yesterday on and off throughout the day. This isn't exactly a feature-rich release and we're talking about more of a classic sci-fi film from the late '50s with a nostalgia factor for some and a certain level of intrigue from cinephiles, but is it a "must buy"? The commentary...

Home Invasion is a weekly post every Tuesday which shows you what is being released on Blu-Ray & DVD today! We scoured through Amazon to bring you everything you might be interested in. Our Picks of the Week are releases that we are looking forward to checking out, have reviewed and/or were are Picks of the Week on the Dtb Podcast. All descriptions are courtesy of Amazon.com.

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Oscar Winners Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren* are spellbinding in this provocative story about the making of one of cinema’s most iconic films. Plagued by both a reckless ego and nagging self-doubt, Hollywood legend Alfred Hitchcock (Hopkins) becomes obsessed with a grisly murder story that the studios won’t back. Determined, he risks his reputation, his home and even the love of his wife Alma (Mirren), as he sets out to make the film.