Beware! The Blob

OK, I don't know why people knock this movie. I saw this when I was a kid, and it genuinely scared the crap out of me. I watch it now, and it still gives me the creeps in some scenes, the hippie getting his (final) haircut, for example.

I think Larry Hagman made this movie just to have some fun, and it clearly shows. I mean come on, where else are you going to see Burgess Meredith (God rest his soul) as a hippie? Some of the scenes were just plain hilarious, such as the scenes with Dick van Patten and the Boy Scouts, for example. Watching him talk to Lisa in the beginning, and getting annoyed at the scouts because of the "Kerbangers" later on, were terrific. I would have liked to have seen what happened to his character, but I guess we can figure it out for ourselves, eh?

Like I said, it looks like Larry and company had a lot of fun.

Give it a chance, and check it out. You won't be disappointed.

Kevin

If I had not seen BEWARE!THE BLOB as an impressionable youth, maybe I could look at it as a cheezy, poorly acted, uneven special effects, campy movie. But there is something sinister going on in this flick, and untill I read a mini revue in CULT MAGAZINE I thought maybe I was just being sensitive. A follow-up to the famous original about a man eating jello from outer space, most critics said something to the effect that BEWARE! THE BLOB doesn't know if it wants to be a horror movie or a comedy, so it fails at both, but I don't agree with that sum-up. I think Larry Hagman (and, or the writers)did something unlike anything done before. In a Horror-comedy, the humor is there to relieve the horror. HERE they got it backwards! We see characters doing goofy sit-com type things, and then they get eaten by the blob! I find the mix of styles very disturbing. This movie gave me nightmares as a kid, and I still can't shake it off! I think Hagman also had a lot of contempt at the time he made this flick. The characters are usually stupid and brain dead to their surroundings, making them easy prey (they are all self-absorbed before being blob-absorbed!). I find the bowling ally attack to be very effective despite the uneven special effects. I know some of you may think I'm taking this silly movie way to seriously and, okay, maybe I am.. But now when you go to a bowling ally, or to the barbers, or sit back in your easy chair just like Godfry Cambridge did, you may just think twice.. BEWARE!

For a film that simultaneously wants to be both a serious horror and a satirical parody, Beware! The Blob fails spectacularly at being either, displaying a dizzying ineptitude and complete lack of care for its own craft. It wants to be an extra gauche and campy horror-comedy, but it also wants to offer earnest disquiet as the Blob advances. Unfortunately, it feels like a film from about 20 years earlier, borrowing its horror stylings from the original. Yet, this Blob manages to feel even more primitive than the first. With no apparent plotting, the mass of soupy red ooze turns up conveniently over the 90-minute running time, interrupting a series of barely related comedy vignettes, to wrap itself around cops, dogs, and hippies in their dune buggies. Larry Hagman, yes, J. R. from Dallas, is in the director's chair, delivering a film filled to the brim with shoddy camera work and clumsy staging. Some death scenes are duly unsettling, and at its best, there's a measure of uneasy atmosphere and tension, especially towards the final stretch. The titular Blob's effects work is about on par with the original, and thankfully, we get a lot more of the little gelatinous creature. Still, it all feels too insincere with a cast who are either drunk, high on drugs, or a combination of both. There's not a single trace of sincerity in anyone's performances. It really feels as if Hagman pointed the camera at his actors and expected them to be funny, without providing any guidance on the scene's purpose. Mort Garson's score, meanwhile, skews too far into kooky and makes everything onscreen feel even more off-kilter. If it weren't for Hagman and a few well-known faces slumming it here, then Beware! The Blob would share the same fate as countless other disposable 70s drive-in features. But, like The Blob itself, the film keeps moving and growing, yet is destined to remain an oddity confined to the footnotes in film books dedicated to the history of horror and science fiction for all eternity. A fitting legacy.

Halfway between playing Major Nelson and J.R. Ewing on television, Larry Hagman found the time to direct this low-budget sequel to the 1958 schlock horror classic that first put Steve McQueen on the map. The tone is somewhere between an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes-like parody (though several years prior to that film)and a straightforward monster-on-the-loose thriller. Although never truly scary, there are a few nice moments, including a climax that essentially recreates the classic movie theater scene from the original but resets it in a crowded bowling alley. Mostly it's fun to try and spot the many well-known actors who appear throughout, including Godfrey Cambridge and Carol Lynley as town locals; comedian Shelley Berman as a hair stylist; Dick Van Patten as a Boy Scout leader; and Burgess Meredith and Hagman himself (nearly unrecognizable) as a pair of hobos. Young Cindy Williams (pre-Laverne & Shirley and American Graffiti) plays a dope-smoking hippie chick, while character actor Richard Stahl gives a great slow-burn comic performance as the bowling alley owner. If you're a fan of the original or just enjoy early-'70s drive-in creature features, you may have some fun taking a look at this.

The story goes that Larry Hagman had a week or two free, and wanted to have some fun. So...he put together a GREAT group of folks for cameos (and red jello, to boot!), and made this grade-z 'horror'! If you want to just have fun...with far more laughs than gasps...and you have 90 minutes to kill...rent it! It's right up there in the genre of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"...