The Blob (1988) This remake/reinvention of the classic 1958 sci-fi horror hit with Steve McQueen came along at one of the worst times in BQ's life......
The film released as we toiled and suffered under the yolk of the Dark Lords of Blockbuster Video...(may they all rot in hell where they're forever forced to undergo hourly colonoscopies....)
We barely can remember any of the movies we viewed that horrific year.....eventually, we had to return to them with fresh, untroubled eyes.....including this one.
Co-writer Frank Darabont (later famous for his Stephen King adaptations) and writer-director Chuck Russell may not have worked with the biggest of budgets, but they obviously had way more cash to play with than the little Downingtown Pa. crew who put together the original Blob.
Using far more advanced and versatile special effects available to them, their 1988 Blob was leagues ahead of the bucket of industrial goo that ever-so-slowwwwly menaced Steve McQueen.
Befitting a more hyper, thrill-a-minute age, the '88 Blob was an aggressively nasty creature, reveling in the tortured agonies of its victims. And far more sentient too. This Blob didn't just randomly ooze about and roll over people: it stalked and hunted humans down like a predator on the prowl.
And when called upon, it could spout tentacles for grabbing. (This is the one addition that we didn't approve of, turning our beloved jelly into some kind of all-purpose sci-fi Swiss Army Knife creature. We think Russell and Darabont missed the point here.....that the Blob stays in our nightmares as a simple, primal terror, like a giant ambulatory cancer cell that lives only to metastasize and engulf you until you cease to be. )
But let's not quibble over spilt tentacles. The movie's a whole lotta gooey, gruesome fun, with the Blob clearly enjoying itself as it rampages through a typical Small Town In The Heartland. Various victims are melted, smothered in filmy slime, consumed from the inside out and in one bravura scene sucked down a kitchen sink drain. Pure Bloberiffic goodness.
The Steve McQueen rebel-without-a-clue role was given to Matt Dillon's little bro Kevin, who's plays it as a true leather-jacketed sneering 1950's juvenile delinquent. (But unlike McQueen, whose cool was effortless, Dillon has to work hard at it, posturing and posing.)
Lots of excellent supporting actors filled out the supporting cast - Jeffrey DeMunn, Candy Clark, Joe Seneca, Paul McCrane and oddly enough, as the town minister, Del Close, one of the founding fathers of improvisational theater.
After finally catching up with the film, years after our confinement in the Blockbuster Gulag, we discovered we loved every oozy-doozy minute of it (minus the tentacles....)
A must for all sci-fi/horror viewers.....3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2).
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