The Blob

I look at this page, and it seems disapproving to me to have to listen to someone ramble and rant at a real classic. Sure, I agree to let everyone have their opinion, but here's mine:

This movie should not be missed by any classic horror watcher, and should be seen many casual viewers around the world. Sure, it has lost some of it's flair and greatness with age, especially in todays world of CGI effects, but that's not why you should like it.

You should like it because it actually is a scary movie, even for today's standards. It's overall ickyness will creep you out just as much as the original audiences, so don't slam a classic if you haven't given it a chance. Watch it, but not with a critical attitude. Watch it to have fun, how it was originally intended.

What a fun time can be had watching The Blob! A meteorite with a blob inside it lands, attatches itself to an old man's hand, engulfs the old man, a nurse, a doctor, and so on...until it is a huge mass of jelly-like substance squeezing through small openings and killing anything and everything in its path. A very young Steve McQueen plays the small-town teenager who just can't get any of the establishment(adults) to listen to him. The film was shot with a shoestring budget and the actors, with the exception of McQueen who shows talent and personality even at this youthful age, range from mediocre to downright bad(Doc Hallen for example), but none of that is overly important to the monster itself. Nothing like it had ever been on film before and some scenes stand out as decidedly very original and memorable. The Spook Movie festival in the movie theater and the finale at the diner are such classic scenes.

Who would think Andy Griffith's "Helen Crump" (Aneta Corsaut) had a Steve McQueen movie in her past? But that is only one of several weird and wonderful things about the ultimate 1950s teenagers-battle-creatures movie, which might best be described as Rebel Without A Cause meets God Knows What From Outer Space. The Rebel is Steven McQueen (who would shortly decide that "Steve" sounded less prissy), a good boy with just enough wild to be interesting; the very wholesome yet understanding girlfriend is the aforementioned Aneta Corsaut. It was bad enough when their date was disrupted by teenage hot-rodders, but they are considerably more nonplussed when they encounter a gelatinous, man-eating What Is It that rides down to earth on its own hotrod meteor--and begins gobbling up townfolk right and left. But will the grown ups believe them? Of course not, what do they know, they're just kids!

The movie is teeny bopper at its teeny bopping best. The actors take the rather pretentious script very seriously, with many a soulful look into each other eyes, and the "adult" supporting cast probably says "Kids!" very third sentence or so. But the real pleasure of the film its creature, which is well imagined, well-executed, and often manages to generate a surprising degree of suspense. And although clearly on the cheap side (check out those miniature sets, guys!), THE BLOB is actually a fairly well-made film--and there's that catchy little theme song thrown in for good measure. The 40-plus crowd (myself included) will enjoy the movie as nostalgia, but that won't prevent them from hooting right along with the younger set at its whole-milk-and-white-bread 1950s sensibility, and the film would be a great choice for either family-movie night or a more sophisticated "grown ups only" get together. Make plenty of Jello cubes for movie snacking! Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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!!!

The Blob is a classic 1950s B-movie sci-fi flick. You probably know the story: two teens (Steve McQueen & Aneta Corsaut) see a meteorite hit the ground, and when they go to look for it, they run into an old man with some weird...blob attached to his arm. They take him to the doctor's office, and then go to find out what happened. From there, the blob spreads, eating everyone in its path. The special effects are cheesy fun, as is the story. There are a lot of great touches, like the cop who plays chess over the radio with a cop in another district. It's no masterpiece, but it has a special place in its genre. Steve McQueen is very good. 8/10.