Movie Review - The Blob (1958)
the 1958 film The Blob from the Criterion Collection is available to stream on HBOMax. It stars Steve McQueen and Aneta Carsaut. The film, directed by Irvin Yeaworth, is said to be inspired by a report of two Pennsylvanian police officers who witnessed something fall from the sky and when investigating found some ooze dangling from a telephone pole. The story says they called backup, but when one of them touched it the ooze evaporated.
In the movie a meteorite falls outside of Pheonixville, Pennsylvania with the titular jelly inside. A young couple stargazing investigate and find an old man with the goo on his hand. Things start to progress from there where The Blog absorbs everyone it comes in contact with growing larger as it does. Later when Steve tries to report things to the local police they think he's pranking them. Undeterred Steve and his girlfriend, Jane enlist the help of friends to try and locate the alien substance.
The movie was pretty cornie even for it's day as the B film on a double feature with I married a Monster from Outer Space. There is too much exposition, no atmosphere and the effects are disappointing. Also this was Steve McQueen's and Aneta Carsaut's first movie and it shows. On the plus side the camera work is good and the color is great despite the strawberry jelly creature effects.
Burt Bacharach and Mack David wrote the song The Blob for the movie that hit #33 on the Billboard chart in November of 1558.
The 1958 trailer
The song and opening titles
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I had some campy fun watching this last weekend on HBOMax.
I saw this in my early teens and thought it was really funny. A few tense sections, but, the acting and the way the Blog was moving around made it more comical to me than scary.
I have been kicking back with some old Hammer films. Watched "The Brides of Dracula" on Tuesday - over the weekend watched other old Dracula movies (Lee & Cushing). Last night it was the original "Salem's Lot".
I actually watched "The Blob" on Tubi couple of months ago - also some really old creature features.
Nice. I was just saying the other day I'd love to see the old Hammer films again. I've been following the news on the new Salem's Lot movie by New Line Cinema, I have the original on DVD. I should pull it out one of these days and watch it again.
I have it on Blu-Ray. I think Tubi, Amazin Classics & Crackle are running the old Hammers for October.
Shades of the Creature from the Black Lagoon''.
Watched that a couple months ago...I always felt bad for the Creature.
They had to use two different creatures. One had a zipper in the back and one had a zipper in the front.
I thought the ending scene where they kicked the palletized frozen blob out the back end of a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II over the North Pole was pretty cool (pun intended)!
I love the old creature features. My wife still watches Svenghoulie every Saturday night. I thought the reboot of The Blob (1988) was pretty good too.
I did too. There was another reported with Rob Zombie attached to it back in 2018, but then it was reported he left and soon after the whole thing went into production hell.
The blob was the one movie McQueen did where he used Steven instead of Steve in the credits.
The 1988 reboot is available to stream on Peacock. I watched it last night.
Also on prime.
The original blob looked like a giant purple bean bag chair. In the remake, the real evil was the minister who saved a piece of it and kept it in a jar with plans to eventually release it.
The remake wasn't bad. Definitely some popcorn fun.
I liked the scene where the blob literally bent the guy in half and pulled him down the kitchen sink drain. Good holiday fun.
Never try to use a plunger on the blob. Lol
It was a humorous use of foreshadowing by the film makers.
Watch for the next Movie Quiz, which will be limited to horror movies (from classic to current) due to the impending Hallowe'en.