Here’s a rare case in which a horror movie remake actually surpasses its source. 1958’s THE BLOB was never much in my view, but this big-budget 1988 redo is a brisk and exciting film with groundbreaking special effects.
The original BLOB, a cheapie produced by Jack H. Harris and starring a young Steve McQueen, was about a blob from outer space that made itself bigger by gobbling up people in a rural community. The film was quite popular, inspiring the Larry Hagman directed sequel BEWARE! THE BLOB (1972) and BLOBERMOUTH (1990), a comedic redubbing by the improv group The LA Connection. Budgeted at a substantial (for the time) $9 million, the 1988 BLOB was directed by A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3’s Chuck Russell and co-scripted by future SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and THE MIST director Frank Darabont, who had this to say about the present film: “Isn’t it great? I’m making a living from writing this nonsense. This is a great country.”
One night in the mountain community of Aborville a meteor crashes to Earth. An old drifter (Billy Beck) investigates the wreckage, only to have a weird life form slither onto his arm. He tries to amputate the offending limb but is stopped by Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon), a local teen rebel. Brian takes the old man to the hospital, along with Meg (Shawnee Smith), a cheerleader, and her jock boyfriend Paul (Donovan Leitch). Brian quickly takes off, and so misses what happens next: the life form, or blob, devours the old man and Paul, all in full view of the horrified Meg.
Meg tracks down Brian, as she knows he’s the only person who will believe her story. They don’t have much time to chat, however, as the blob strikes again, engulfing a restaurant manager in his own place of business and then his wife in a phone booth. From there the thing heads for a movie theater where Meg’s little brother Kevin (Michael Kenworthy) happens to be watching a horror flick. Meg races to the theater just as the blob offs the projectionist, and escapes into the sewer with Kevin.
Around this time some shadowy government men wearing white contaminant suits turn up. It seems the blob is a military experiment that went out of control, and now the government is desperate to reign the thing in—but will they be able to do so before it completely engulfs Aborville
The Russell-Darabont screenplay is serviceable at best, and hamstrung somewhat by the need to be faithful to the original film (which had little to commend in the scripting department). But there are some ingenious gags, most notably the phone booth sequence, in which the blob engulfs a glass phone booth with the corpse of its last victim visible in its mass (never mind that there’s no plausible light source). Also, Russell has no compunctions about going clear over the top, having a little boy killed in quite nasty fashion near the end.
Russell is equally at ease directing actors—Shawnee Smith and Kevin Dillon are quite engaging in the lead roles—and special effects, which were and remain impressive. The blob was created through a variety of different methods, including old fashioned stop motion animation, milkshake thickener and, in the final scenes, several tons of rock salt. The result isn’t quite up to the brilliance of the foremost eighties horror remakes THE THING and THE FLY, but this BLOB is still an memorably gross, entertaining trifle.
Vital Statistics
THE BLOB
Tri-Star Pictures
Director: Chuck Russell
Producers: Jack H. Harris, Elliott Kastner
Screenplay: Chuck Russell, Frank Darabont
Cinematography: Mark Irwin
Editing: Tod Feuerman, Terry Stokes
Cast: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch, Jeffrey DeMunn, Candy Clark, Joe Seneca, Del Close, Paul McCrane, Sharon Spelman, Beau Billingslea, Art LeFleur, Ricky Paull Goldin, Jack Nance