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1958’s The Blob feels like a film we should be reviewing for regular Dark Corners.
‘I don’t like it much.’
And make no mistake, we could.
This is, in many ways, every bit as ridiculous as every other example of that stereotypically 50s genre,
alien visitor in a small town defeated by teens, who are in no way teens.
‘No, no, it’s not what you think, Janie girl.’
But a pre-Magnificent 7 Steve McQueen, 28 at the time of filming,
is not the only thing that sets The Blob apart, there is also the alien visitor itself,
so much more alien than the usual man in a big-headed mask
and while the effects might not impress a modern audience there is something visceral about the blob that has not aged.
CGI does this easily but not always effectively.
There is a sticky physical presence to the blob that transcends the cheesiness,
particularly when it invades the movie theatre and what a brilliantly triggering idea that is given the location of the audience.
It’s also as relentless as a terminator; doors won’t stop it, acid won’t stop it.
Nothing will stop it.
‘It didn’t work.’
None of which stops this from being as silly as you’d expect;
badly faked car driving, some pretty stiff acting
and general idiocy;
having been given a job by the doctor caring for the blob’s first victim,
Steve and girlfriend Jane – also in her late twenties – stop for a backwards car race, before…
‘I almost forgot, I gotta do something for the doc.’
Oh, yeah, that dying guy.
The interesting thing about the Blob is that is not the first of its kind, it’s almost a rerun of Invasion of the Saucermen,
but it’s the one that’s entered the popular consciousness.
When we think of the cliches of the genre, it’s this movie we’re going back to,
from kids ‘parking.’
To no one believing them,
‘Maybe the thing you saw is a monster’
The bad and the good. It’s a cultural touchstone,
not just of the genre but of our filtered view of what 1950s smalltown America was like.
‘Has everyone in this fool town gone crazy.’
The kids are that horribly inauthentic rendering of what a 40 year old writer thought teenagers got up to.
‘They’re just the kind of kids to pull a trick like this. But this time they’ve gone too far.’
But that adults have more shading.
‘They’ve heard about my war record and it bugs ‘em.’
I love the fact that some adults are partying too hard to take the threat seriously.
‘We came here just to warn you.’
'A warning, fine, well I didn't know you cared.'
Finally, and getting back to The Blob as a movie rather than a cinematic landmark,
where this scores most heavily above its contemporaries is tension.
For all its daftness and ham-fistedly overwritten dialogue, The Blob is, at times, genuinely tense.
Something that surprisingly few of these films are, and which does elevate it.
This is a bad film and, despite the ludicrous song over the credits.
#Beware of the Blob, it creeps and leaps and slides and glides across the floor and through the door.'
It often forgets to be fun, which is a cardinal sin for this type of movie,
but it is important in the genre, and it has its moments.
And it’s oddly loveable.
Thanks for watching. What are your thoughts on the Blob and our favourite movies of the great Steve McQueen?
Let us know in the comments below.