By Geno McGahee
In 1988, THE BLOB was remade and that’s the one that I was familiar with. I remember really liking it, but since it was a remake, I needed to see the original and it has taken this long for me to check it out. Steve McQueen stars in this and is playing a teenager even though he was 27 at the time. This is nothing new. You see it in a lot of movies. Remember THE BREAKFAST CLUB? They were all supposed to be under 18! So, with film, you have to suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the production and that is what I did with the 1958 original monster movie “THE BLOB.”
Steve (McQueen) finds a poor old man that had stumbled upon a meteor. The elderly fool touched it and now his arm is infected with something. Steve and his girlfriend, Jane (Aneta Corsaut), drive the old man to Doctor Hallen (Stephen Chase) and things begin to get really strange. After the young couple leaves, the blob begins climbing up the old man’s arm and the decision is made to severe the limb. Kate (Lee Payton), the nurse, is called in to help with the operation but by the time they go to do it, the old man is missing. In his place is an enormous blob sitting in the room. It takes out the nurse and then goes after the doctor. Steve returns to see the doctor getting killed by the thing and runs to the police to tell them the story.
Unfortunately, one of the cops is a douche bag. Sgt. Bert (John Benson) basically hates teens. He especially hates 27-year-olds that pretend to be teens. He dismisses the story and becomes even more skeptical after visiting the scene. Lt. Dave (Earl Rowe) isn’t as quick to dismiss and wants to investigate further and make sure that the doctor is alright. Dave and Steve know each other well and he doesn’t suspect this is a prank being played.
Steve and Jane’s parents are called and when they get to the station, they are not pleased, especially Henry Martin (Elbert Smith), who looks like he just walked off the TV show “TO CATCH A PREDATOR.” He doesn’t want Steve to get into her pants and surely doesn’t want his blob to go anywhere near her. Mr. Andrews (Hugh Graham), who is about 65, believes his son…but you’d think that they’d get a younger guy to play his dad too. I know that McQueen was 27, but we’re pretending that he’s 17, right? So, shouldn’t the dad be 40 at most? They brought in some old guy and it just made it worse.
The two lovebirds sneak out of their houses to meet up again and finally see the blob in all its glory, at the grocery store. Steve jumps over some Ritz crackers to save the damsel in distress and they make a run to the movie theater to get their friends to help them spread the word. Now, I hate those that speak during a movie, but there was some really old guy there bitching a fit at them. More concerning was the fact that he was with a young boy. This was 1958. People didn’t ask questions then. My question would be: “Hey old man, whatcha doing with that young boy, you pervert!”
The group gets the town together and, of course, Sgt. Bert has to be a prick again. He casually walks out of the grocery store and notes that “nobody here…just us monsters.” Lt. Dave steps up and puts that short little jerk in his place and then all hell breaks loose. The blob attacks the movie-goers and they all run for their lives. The extras they got for this movie are really really bad. Most of them are smiling and they recycle the same ones a few times. You’ll see the same people run out of the movie theater twice. Maybe they forgot their large soda and went back for it. I had respect for an old lady though. She ran out and ran over some kid to get away from the blob. Good for her. The rest were just terrible.
Steve, Jane, and Jane’s very annoying little brother, Danny, hold up in a diner that gets covered by the enormous blob. The owner tries to leave but Steve gets him from behind and boy was the owner surprised. “I didn’t order the sausage platter” is what went through his mind as McQueen got him from the back…at least that was my take on it. I know it’s an emergency and if you’re going to go, go happy, but the chef shouldn’t have been groped.
The town bans together and find a way to combat the blob, but it leaves plenty of room for a sequel or a remake, 30 years later. I love THE BLOB. It’s campy but McQueen is the real deal and he was compelling throughout. It’s hard to accept him as 17 in this, but there’s really no need to. It’s just a good film with a great deal of fun factor. I highly recommend THE BLOB…damn, that’s exactly what I said when I set up my friend with his last girlfriend….but anyway, I did love this film. It’s not as good as the 1988 follow-up, from what I remember, but it’s absolutely worth a watch.
Rating: 7/10
