Hello, this is The Gemsbok, and today's topic is The Blob, a film directed by
Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. and originally released in 1958. Almost everyone is
familiar with some instance of the "so bad, it's good" phenomenon of watching
movies that are enjoyable because of how terrible they are. There is fame and
fortune for anyone who sincerely tries and laughably fails to make a good movie.
"YOU BETRAYED ME. YOU'RE NOT GOOD. YOU—YOU'RE JUST A CHICKEN.
CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP!"
But today I want to talk about a subtly different, but related phenomenon: movies
which were good in their time, but which have aged into a different genre (usually
comedy). One such film which has undergone this comedic fermentation process is The
Blob, a short 1950s drive-in science- fiction movie. A film loved by audiences
in its time, if not by critics, The Blob still offers viewers a very enjoyable
experience, but for very different reasons.
"I DON'T KNOW."
"HAS EVERYONE IN THIS FOOL TOWN GONE CRAZY?"
What was once a semi-horror,
science-fiction creature feature (with Red Scare political allegory undertones)
has become a schlocky, humorous melodrama.
"EVERY ONE OF YOU WATCHING THIS SCREEN, LOOK OUT, BECAUSE SOON, VERY SOON,
THE MOST HORRIFYING MONSTER MENACE EVER CONCEIVED WILL BE OOZING INTO THIS THEATER!"
Open on an ordinary night in a small town in Middle America, where life is as
you would expect it: groups of 30- and 40- year-old teenagers compete in slow,
half-block backwards car races; cops shame each other for playing radio-relay chess;
folks attend screenings of midnight
horror movies being shown on inexplicably tiny movie screens; and
drunken hillbillies poke meteorites with sticks. All is as it should be . . . or is it?
Chaos very slowly ensues as a tiny, slow-moving monster jello from beyond
the stars begins sneaking around and digesting people. Will the town's earnest
and gullible middle-aged teens be able to convince the stubborn adults
of the reality of the threat?
"THEY SAY THEY'VE COME TO GIVE US A WARNING ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT—
THE BRITISH ARE COMING!"
"YEAH, SURE."
[LAUGHTER]
Or will a lump of sluggish goo that could be outrun by
a toddler—murder everyone?
"HEY, MARTY!"
[DRAMATIC MUSIC SWELLS]
"EEEUUUUHH AAHH AAAAGGHHUH EUGH!"
When it was released, The Blob was an independently made B movie—not a
big-budget studio release. It was originally used to supplement screenings
of a movie called 'I Married a Monster from Outer Space' in drive-in double
features and the like. But the ability of The Blob to attract audiences drove it
into the limelight as a feature film. It's a serious effort to make a quality
thriller, but its budgetary limitations can be felt in almost every scene,
including a few filler sequences that feel clearly intended to pad out a 60-
minute concept into an 80-minute film.
"—WHEN ALONG COMES SERGEANT BERT. SO MOOCH TELLS HIM, 'WE CAN'T GET IT STARTED,' YOU KNOW.
HE SAYS, 'I DON'T CARE, UH, YOU'RE, UH, BLOCKING TRAFFIC.
MOVE IT. MOVE IT OUT OF THE WAY,' YOU KNOW. SO THEN HE GETS OUT OF THE CAR,
COMES OVER TO US, AND HE'S HELPING US MOVE GIG'S CAR."
And that origin meant that even contemporary audiences had to make some allowances
for the low caliber of the film's special effects. But to a viewer watching
today, the eponymous undulating mass fails to conceal even momentarily that
it is a teeny little object jiggling in forced perspective. The lifecycle of the
blob creature within the film is something truly worthy of attention.
It starts life as an agile ball of translucent snot. It turns red, and eats a
half-dozen people, without surpassing the size of a miniature beanbag chair.
Finally, it invades a movie theater containing a small crowd; this causes an
inexplicably massive crowd to flee from the building, while it presumably eats a
few more people. This causes the blob to immediately
become the size of a building. From here, it spontaneously grows, attaining its
final form by transforming into a matte painting. The effects and edits used for
the blob throughout the film caused it to seem more than appropriately sluggish,
or 'blobbish,' which in turn makes the helplessness of its victims highly
comical. The protagonist couple manage to corner themselves on two separate
occasions when the blob is squishing around nearby. But poor decision-making is not
the only notable facet of the film's characters, which will now merit further attention.
"AREN'T YOU AFRAID TO GO OUT BY YOURSELF?"
Another consequence of The Blob's low budget is a cast comprised entirely of
unknown actors, almost all of whom are overacting as much as possible (probably
in the hopes of getting noticed).
"I DON'T CARE WHAT BERTIE'S IDEAS ARE. HE ACTS LIKE HE WAS STILL FIGHTING THE WAR.
JUST BECAUSE SOME KID SMACKS INTO HIS WIFE ON THE TURNPIKE—
DOESN'T MAKE IT A CRIME TO BE 17 YEARS OLD."
The central character, and only exception to that trend, is played by
actor Steve McQueen (himself unknown at the time) in his first ever starring role.
He plays a stalwart, romantic, trustworthy character—also named Steve—who will stop
at nothing to end the reign of terror which he bafflingly, though accurately, predicts.
"IT'S KIND OF LIKE A MASS THAT KEEPS GETTING BIGGER AND BIGGER."
His performance failed to impress the critics, but he does an
admirable job of giving life to the most generic role in the film.
"AND THEN HE—
JUST DISSOLVED WHILE I STOOD THERE.
I THINK I SAW THIS."
At nearly 30 years old, McQueen plays a high-school student,
"STARRING STEVE MCQUEEN, AND A CAST OF EXCITING YOUNG PEOPLE!"
whose high school sweetheart, Jane, acts as his ineffectual sidekick from start to finish.
"WELL—WELL WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER, AREN'T WE, STEVE?"
Jane, a young teen portrayed by 25- year-old actress Aneta Corsaut, is most
notable as a character due to her constant negligence when tasked with
protecting dogs and children. She picks up a blob victim's dog early in the film
with the intention of caring for it, drops it while exiting a car shortly
after, and makes no effort to pick it back up. Later, they miraculously find the
dog again, and Steve shrewdly entrusts it to Jane
again. But, wouldn't you know it? Literally less than 60 seconds later, she sees the
blob, and clumsily trips over a pile of cans, dropping the dog, never to be seen
again. Finally, in the logical conclusion of her
character arc, she encourages her baby brother to fall asleep while the
characters face the danger of smoke inhalation when a fire encroaches on a basement.
"HONEY, LAY YOUR—LAY YOUR HEAD DOWN AND—AND TRY TO GO TO SLEEP."
Almost every other citizen of the town, conversely, is a ham-fisted stereotype,
from a chronically offended father
"VANDALS? MY DAUGHTER?"
to a dutiful, overworked doctor
"NO, I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ANYTHING."
to an 'all teenagers are criminals' police officer who seems to
have stepped right out of an episode of Dragnet.
"THOSE KIDS? WELL, THERE'S YOUR ANSWER RIGHT THERE.
THEY'RE JUST THE KIND OF KIDS TO PULL A TRICK LIKE THIS."
Their fidelity to their assigned character traits
forces them to emote accordingly, often with amusing and unexpected fervor.
"WHOEVER THIS THIEF WAS, HE DIDN'T HAVE TO TEAR UP THE PLACE LIKE THIS.
I FEEL TERRIBLE!"
The teenager characters, universally played by actors
at nearly the same age as the adult characters, offer audiences plenty of smiles as well.
"STARRING STEVE MCQUEEN, AND A CAST OF EXCITING YOUNG PEOPLE!"
by jumping wildly, from stilted jokes
"DA DUH, DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH, DUH DUH DA!"
[METALLIC PING]
[LAUGHTER]
to displays of unmotivated fraternal allegiance.
[LAUGHTER]
"GARRH." "EEEEK!"
"HEY, KNOCK IT OFF!
. . . GO AHEAD, STEVE."
Some of the greatest and most hilarious aspects of The Blob, however,
stem not from its plot, but from its style. It is a mostly typical example of
a 1950s American science fiction film— replete with excessive dialogue scenes,
overbearing symbols and metaphors, and dire consequences for youthful hijinks.
"IS EVERY KID IN TOWN IN ON THIS?"
There are examples of this era-specific style which have aged with some kitschy
grace, such as the original The Day the Earth Stood Still and some of the better
episodes of The Twilight Zone.
"I BELIEVE YOU'RE GOING—MY WAY?"
And then there are examples which can no longer be taken seriously,
such as The Blob and some of the worse episodes of The Twilight Zone.
"SILENCE. I'M RECEIVING HIS WAVES.
NAME IS DINGLE."
My personal favorite moment in The Blob occurs in a scene at the hospital early
in the film, and is a result of the film style's most melodramatic tendencies.
"DOCTOR, I'M AFRAID." "TRY TO STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM IT AS YOU CAN."
"NNHAGH!" "KATE, BE CALM!"
After a doctor compels a nurse to ineffectually toss a small jar of acid
at the blob, so far their first and only attempt to harm it, she declares:
"DOCTOR, NOTHING WILL STOP IT."
and then almost immediately begins panicking in the presence
of the nearly motionless monster.
"DON'T GO! DON'T LEAVE ME!" "I'LL BE RIGHT BACK."
"DOCTOR! COME BACK! COME BACK! MMHUH! AAUH!
EEEEAUGH!" [CRASH]
"KATE, WHAT'S THE MATTER?"
Throughout the film, this unique and dated format
necessitates the heightening of stakes and tension primarily through the
principal characters' seemingly random assertions,
"THIS TOWN IS IN DANGER. NOW, SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED ALREADY."
which are always later proven correct.
This leads to no end of plot conveniences, which are sure to delight a savvy viewer.
"DAVE—DAVE, AT THE THEATER!"
The uncanny ability of this sincere little movie to attract an audience has
undoubtedly survived, as evidenced by the annual Blobfest event still held in its
honor and by The Criterion Collection release it garnered. In this video, I have
even left out a number of the delightful details of this old gem—especially
pertaining to the climax and resolution of the story—specifically so that you
can discover them for yourself. It's not a laugh-a-minute experience;
"DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEBODY'S PLAYING A PRACTICAL JOKE? AM I LAUGHING?"
I remind you that there is a bit of filler.
"Q TO K2."
"DO I READ YOU RIGHT? Q TO K2?"
"ROGER."
"KN TO KB5."
But The Blob's slower and less humorous sections are heavily weighted toward the
front—which means that it only gets more enjoyable the further in you get.
"I WONDER WHERE THE LITTLE DOG IS."
"YEAH."
"WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK—HAPPENED TO HIM?"
I suppose I could imagine a particularly
credulous and fearful viewer still being able to take the film seriously, but my
reason for making this video was definitely the laughter that it drew
from me at regular intervals. So, if you have a few friends whose presence and
commentary has already proven hilarious while watching films like The Room, Birdemic, or Troll 2,
"AND YOU CAN'T PISS ON HOSPITALITY! I WON'T ALLOW IT!"
then I would urge you to round them up again and find a
copy of a short, sweet film called—The Blob.
"80 OR 90 PERCENT OF THE ACCIDENTS ARE FRONT-END JOBS.
YOU KNOW, IN AUSTRALIA, THEY GOT, UH . . . AIRPLANES, YOU KNOW, WITH THE SEATS
THAT IN BACKWARDS, SO, IN CASE YOU GOT A COLLISION, THEY GOT . . . NO CONCU—"
[LAUGHTER]
"NO GOOD, HUH?"