The Blob (1988)

Truly Dreadful Film

Really Surprised!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Good concept, poorly executed.

In this movie there is a recurring subplot of a typical slasher film being shown at the local movie theater. After certain events of The Blob, a character says that this will cause him to never see another one of these scary movies. This all feels like some meta commentary by the makers on The Blob itself and is just one of the signs that they did not take this movie too seriously. The other sign: the effects in this movie. The practical gore effects are good, but at the same time they are increasingly comical, and at some points look more like slapstick. My partner and I were laughing out loud during every death, and at the way the titular Blob stalked and chased its victims. The creators could not have been unaware of how their effects looked. Even the name of the movie is kind of funny. The humour of the action, whether international or unintentional, is only underlined by the fact that the rest of this movie is played straight and the quality is alright. Elements established early in the story pay off later on; the acting is alright; the conversations are not the best but not bad for a horror flick; characters are properly established and the central characters have a bit of an arch to them. Sadly, the movie doesn't go far enough into one or the other direction. It is not purposefully funny enough to be a dark comedy and too funny to be a horror movie, which plants it much closer to the so-bad-that-it's-good territory than to any other. In short, this movie is kind of awesome. It's a question whether or not the people behind it realize the reasons why it's awesome, but in any case, it's worth watching. The Blob is a good example of horror slapstick.

This movie is a very well-done remake of the classic Blob movie from 30 years before. Although there are no actors as charismatic as Steve McQueen, there are several characters you become attached to and you hope that they live, but they don't. The first character to die that you come to like is Paul who unfortunately meets his end in the hospital, being digested alive by the Blob. Next is Paul's friend who was planning to have sex with his date while she was unconscious. Fran is killed by the Blob in a phone booth but not before showing her the half-digested remains of Sheriff Herb Geller who was going to save her. The suspense of the Blob surrounding the phone booth had me on edge.The main scientist, Meddows, at first seems nice but it's son revealed that's he the main human villain, trapping Brian and Megg and one of his own men in the sewers to be devoured by the Blob, parking a van so one of it's tires covers the manhole. The scientist who was trapped with them has a rocket launcher, which blows up not only the manhole cover but also the van! Meddows gets his when his is killed and digested by the Blob.In this movie, no characters are safe. The people you think are going to live are killed with the exception of Brain and Meg. Hell, even a young child is dragged underwater by the Blob. Upon jumping in to try and save the kid, Meg is greeted by the kid's half digested body which is screaming in pain.Some characters that you think are going to die (like Reverend Meeker) actually survive, though Meeker has burn scars by the end.The Blob is revealed to not be an alien this time, but a government weapon project. At first, I felt that this was a stupid change but the movie was able to run with it.At the very end, Meeker, who has now lost his mind, shows the small living Blob he has trapped in a jar and says it is the apocalypse and he will release it when God gives him a sign. It's a chilling ending that thankfully didn't result in a sequel.One last thing, there are several editing gags in the film. The first, Brian is preparing to do a stunt jump with his motorbike. The movie cuts to the crowd at the local football game chanting "GO" repeatedly. The second, there's a shot of the blob slurping up the can man's arm which cuts to a kid slurping Jell-O off his plate.Overall, this is a great remake when compared to the original. It's well-written and very suspenseful and tense in some places. It does a good job at building up characters who you think will live before killing them off and the gore is top notch, even scary. If you're looking for a good '80s horror/monster movie, check out The Blob from 1988.

Remakes of classic films are usually terrible (especially with the likes of PSYCHO and GODZILLA), but a handful of them are actually rather good, and in some cases improve on the original, which was the case with Cronenberg's remake of THE FLY. THE BLOB happily falls into the latter category, being a adrenaline-pumping tale which mixes horror elements, science fiction moments and has the speed and energy of an action film. While the 1950s original classic starring Steve McQueen was a good, original, monster movie with some frightening moments, it was somewhat lacking in the special effects department, and what effects there were just weren't enough to do it justice. This is where the 1988 remake of THE BLOB comes in.The special effects are spectacular and especially gruesome this time around. In the scenes where a large-scale Blob is attacking people, back projection is obviously being used just like it was in THE STUFF, but this does not detract from the entertainment value. There is a high death rate in the film, and lots of spectacular and bloody deaths mostly involving people melting and being enveloped in the Blob's tentacles, and it's pleasing to see that the effects are not at all CGI-generated, like the similarly slimy tentacles were in DEEP RISING.To move the film along, there are a lot of chase scenes, on motorcycles, in sewers, in the streets, everywhere really. These make the film feel a lot like a roller-coaster ride, and that's exactly what it is. The acting is good all-round, from Shawnee Smith as the tough heroine to Kevin Dillon as the outsider who turns out to be a good guy, with support from a creepy Reverend. All of the actors put in over the top performances in terms of emoting, which is amusing, and they thankfully don't take themselves too seriously. THE BLOB sticks (no pun intended), in terms of plot, to the '50s original, but fleshes out the story a lot (even adding in an up-to-date government conspiracy angle), and generally feels to be a bigger, more packed film. Not a minute goes by without something exciting happening. If you're looking for solid escapist entertainment, then THE BLOB is for you.

Following a rash of mysterious deaths in a small Midwestern town, a local teen finds it to be done by a killer amorphous blob that grows bigger with each body dissolved into it and forces him and his friends to try to find a way to stop it before it gets out of hand. Overall this was an outrageously fun remake that really has a lot going for it and is a lot more enjoyable than expected. One of the better parts here is the ton of high quality special effects on-board, which is quite well removed from the original an serves as this one's biggest influencing factor. With a large portion of that coming mainly from the slimy creature and it's constantly changing appearance, there's some really creepy work done here to make the different incarnations of the creature, going from formless blob and distorted, mechanized mass it eventually turns into as this is quite an impressive creature. Much as that works, this one has a lot of great stuff that gives it a cheesy, enjoyable quality on the special effects front, mainly because of the increased screen-time here for the creature so not only is there more action scenes but they're also highly energetic and enjoyable. The attack on the clinic is a prime example as it just winds through the personnel with a great sense of fun and action as the race to get up from the bed in order to get out before the creature gets to the dissolving victims that generates a lot because of the gory wounds and scars. Due to the how it plays out, that continues on into the finale that really plays up a rather healthy amount of excitement due to the course of the action scenes of the creature's attacks on the different defensive groups in the sewers before the utter fun of the big shootout at the end to really get a lot out of this so there's a lot of impressive elements at work throughout the film. Overall, these are more than enough to hold off the few small flaws here. While providing the film with a lot of great action scenes, the introduction of the biohazard team in the last half doesn't really do much and seems to feel tacked on merely for an added body count since they're not mentioned before then just get dropped into the film without a lot of cleverness to the story. That lack of regard for cohesiveness is what makes their overall purpose hinder the film a tad, and it never really gives a solid explanation for the purpose behind their experimentation either as for how it got loose to begin with. Likewise, the fact that there's a few too many similarities both in terms of storyline and even wholesale sequences that come straight from the original could be a bit problematic for some with this one due to those factors. Overall, though, this one is a lot of fun and has plenty to like about it.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.