The Blob...1958...86 minutes...NR...starring Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, and John Benson...written by Theodore Simonson and Kay Linaker...directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. and Russell S. Doughton, Jr.
No one ever believes you when you're a rebellious teen. Let's take Steve for an example: he and his girlfriend Jane go driving on the edge of town, looking for where a shooting star landed. They end up almost hitting an old man who has this strange (and alien, let's not forget alien) goo on his hand; but being good kids at heart they take the oldtimer to the doctor. The goo ends up growing, and eating the old man, the doc, and his nurse...but of course no one believes Steve, who's a known hot-rodder. Darn kids trying to save the town....
This movie is one of Steve McQueen's earlier roles, and no one thought that it would be as big of a hit as it turned out to be. (He might have held out for more than $3,000 had he known.) It's also a prime example of the 50s thriller...sure, everything's dated; and it's hard to take a movie seriously where the threat to the general warfare looks like a gigantic amount of strawberry jelly. It's especially hard to take seriously when you hear the opening theme song. Still, consider the movie a time capsule and an excellent exemplar of teen angst as expressed in popular culture. You gotta love a movie where the teens of the town use their expertise of making noise to get the town mobilized...complete with sirens and air-raid alarms.
Doing my scrounging around on the Internet for tidbits on the movie, I found out that Rob Zombie had been planning to do a remake of this movie but has apparently dropped the project to work on "The Lords of Salem". Now there's a thought I find more disturbing than the original movie itself....
For the sake of film history, and because you just don't see too many movies featuring a gigantic amount of red alien protoplasm, I give "The Blob" 3 yappy little dogs out of 5.
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