Beware! The Blob

I love the original 1958 film 'The blob.' I've somehow been unaware until very recently that 1972 sequel 'Beware! The blob' existed. Frankly, ignorance was bliss, and I wish I had it back.

This movie borrows the sci-fi horror stylings of the 50s flick, yes. Some death scenes are duly unsettling, and at its best there's a measure of uneasy atmosphere and tension at times. However, it then also tries to one-up the worst indulgences of its predecessor's B-movie contemporaries with awful, unfunny ham-handedness that closely resembles mid-century TV shows like 'The Munsters,' 'Batman,' or 'The Partridge Family' more than anything else. Couple this with astounding, blithe inauthenticity in the characters, dialogue, and scene writing - and not least in the acting. There's not one trace of sincerity in anyone's performances; if I didn't know any better I'd say they were drunk or high every time the camera was rolling, or had never been in front of a camera before and couldn't suppress a nervous smile. If not for tasteless scenes of animals getting eaten by the blob, then I'd be cheering for the ooze just in the hope that all the characters go away - and then the cast, crew, and filmmakers, in turn.

'Beware!' wants to be an extra gauche and campy horror-comedy, but it also wants to offer earnest disquiet as the blob advances. Both strains fall apart owing to the confounding lack of care that anyone put into the project. I hate to fall back on 'Manos: The hands of fate' as a point of comparison, but it's a worthwhile one here, because for all the faults of Harold P. Warren's no-budget infamy, at least in that instance everyone involved poured genuine effort into their contributions. This could have been fun, one way or another, but the picture we get is a mess where the appearance of the creature seems to be the only aspect consistently deserving of praise. Maybe I'm just not properly attuned to this level of kitsch, yet the fact that this 1972 feature is strongest where it echoes its 1958 antecedent - and emphatically weakest when its own flavors are infused - says much. If only it could have found one steady tone; even the climax and ending, which seem so promising at first, can't completely avoid the wild, unwieldy oscillation.

Sure, I've seen worse movies. So what? One could watch this in recognition of what it does irregularly do well - or my suggestion would be to just rewatch the 1958 movie, because that's why you're here in the first place. 'Beware! The blob' is a sad instance of a sequel that we honestly just didn't need.

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.

There's something strange about this follow up to the blob,even though it's credited to hagman as director it feels like he was ditched in the final half hour to someone who knew what they were doing the first two thirds are tediously improvised and geniounly dull whereas the final half hour racks up the tension and is actually well shot reminiscent of john carpenter it's no surprise to see dean cundey had a hand in this picture lush blues and reds and dark shadows,based on what's seen on screen a major part in how this film ended up being realised on screen.

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

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"...