The Blob
Categories: Halloween Reviews, Movie Reviews
Written By: Mark Casey
Rating: 
The original blob is an interesting film to dissect. On the one hand, it’s a classic. On the other, it’s not any good.
The lead character, Steve Andrews, is played by Steve McQueen. It’s safe to say that he does “okay,” but it’s clear that he’s only going through the proverbial motions, just as many of today’s big name actors do when they’re cast in a big budget picture, with a questionable script but a large paycheck to make up for it.
And man, is this script questionable. Maybe no one noticed in 1958, during the age of moster movies–when Giant Gila Monsters and Creatures from 20,000 Fathoms roamed across the silver screen–that an unstoppable, all-consuming, shapeless, slow-moving blob of goo is a completely lame monster to have to thwart.
Literally, the only thing that can be done to this thing is to freeze it. Oops, I ruined the ending for you. But nothing can ruin the sheer pleasure of laughing at the script, as a policeman shoots down a power line to try and electrocute the Jell-O, and another looks at it after the big climactic moment, and says simply, with no shot of the still “alive” blob, “…It didn’t work.”
This is just one moment of extreme exposition out of several hundred in the film (and trust me, no phrasing can ever do the hilariously awkward moment justice), particularly in the third act, when no one could think of a conclusion for this film about a monster which, by definition, is unstoppable.
But, as a cheeky side-note (and maybe it’s worth a viewing nowadays specifically because of this), it now appears that the movie is about global warming. Yes, the climate crisis was at the forefront of the minds of liberal Hollywood, even in 1958, before anyone knew it existed.
See, they freeze the thing, and pick it up with a helicopter to drop it off in the arctic. The last line of the movie, I’m not kidding you, is this:
Guy 1: “We’ll drop it off in the arctic, where hopefully it’ll stay frozen forever.”
Guy 2: “As long as the arctic stays frozen…”
*Dramatic Music!!*
There’s a real sense of dread at the end of the picture, and you get the distinct impression that this guy is actually suggesting that the polar ice caps may melt the following week.
And the final scene is of the helicopter, dropping the blob off in the icy North, with big white letters spelling out “THE END,” which then morph and change shape to form a–bum bum bummmm–QUESTION MARK.
Very nice. So this was actually an entertaining ending after a somewhat disappointing viewing of the film. It may be offered as a defense that this film is too old to stand up to modern cinematic evaluation–and indeed, the average quality of movies has risen over the decades as filmmakers refined their craft. But many a fine movie was made back then, which still impress to this day, including horror films.
Most Hitchcock films, for example, have much better writing, acting and directing than this silly little popcorn movie, which somehow found a place in the hearts of the American public.
If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:
October 30th, 2007 at 9:21 am
There’s ’bout to be a fight up on this website, folks.
The cavalier way Mark throws criticisms at a movie like The Blob can only mean one thing: We are gonna have to rumble.
The Blob is totally great! It creeps and gleeps and whatnot!
And the average quality of movies has risen over the decades? WHAT? Insane!
There’s definitely gonna be fisticuffs in the streets of the internet tonight.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
The average quality of movies has TOTALLY risen over the last half century–how could it not? Writing methods have become more compelling, cinematic devices are more effective–half the movies that came out 40 or 50 years ago never even made it onto VHS, let alone TV or DVD. Just because the only movies we’ve ever heard of as modern folks are the “quality” ones, it doesn’t mean every Panachrome picture was a work of genius. Even the most painful and asinine direct-to-DVD Tyra Banks productions have a small modicum of the necessary intrigue, plot development, character arcs, and multi-layered conflicts that are important to keeping one’s interest in any story.
But! The Blob does indeed “creep and gleep,” which had me in stitches. I may have been a little harsh when I called it totally lame. The shots of it slowly glopping its way across a room without a care in the world can indeed be pretty suspenseful.
Still, the exposition is something that can’t be excused, even for a fun nonsense film. I cringed nearly as many times during this movie as I did during Transformers–and for the same reasons, which is really saying something.