The Blob

The Blob; horror, USA, 1988; D: Chuck Russell, S: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch, Jeffrey DeMunn, Candy Clark, Joe Seneca

A meteorite crashes in a forest near a small town and a pink slime emerges out of it. It attaches itself to the hand of a homeless man, but after he is brought to the hospital, his lower half of the body is found decomposed. The pink blob falls from the ceiling and "digests" teenager Paul, which shocks his date, Meg. Soon, the blob spreads across the town, killing numerous people. Rebel teenager Brian overhears the conversations of scientists on the crash site, who say the blob is actually a bioweapon created by the military and deliberately thrown at the town to test its effectiveness. Brian finds out the blob is afraid of cold, so he uses the snowmaking truck to freeze the blob and save the town.

The remake of the eponymous '58 horror film, "The Blob" is a surprisingly well made modern (B) film which benefited a lot from the screenplay by Frank Darabont, who managed to conceal some of its obvious trash flaws. The best part of the film is its first third which shows a lot of neat quiet character interactions—for instance, a Sheriff is hitting on a waitress at a diner, and as he is just about to leave, she hands him the bill with an added note she wrote at the bottom: "I'm off at 11:00". Teenager Scott wants to buy condoms at the pharmacy, and feigns in front of the pharmacist that he is only buying them for his friend, Paul, who is "irresponsible". A few minutes later, this set-up has a delicious pay-off: Paul is about to go on a date with Meg, arrives at her house, while she introduces him to her father, who lowers the newspapers—and is revealed to be the pharmacist from the previous scene, who just looks angrily at Paul. There are also other fine moments, but each good idea is thereafter nullified and "digested" the same way the blob "digests" people, which is too heavy-handed and filled with shock, vile and gore moments. Despite this mish-mash of high and low art, the director Chuck Russell manages to create just enough ingredients to pull this outlandish concept through, even adding a plot twist at the end involving the origins of the blob and the military conspiracy around it. The ending is abrupt, and the blob kills at moments like the alien from Carpenter's "The Thing", yet the fact that so many elements in the film are competent is already an accomplishment.

Grade:++