Film & 40s: BOO(ze)!: The Blob (1988)

I remember when I scored a poster of this from a movie theatre back in 88.

This movie rocks! Great effects, fun characters, great deaths. What more could you ask for. Will track down the movie and listen along!

I was about 15 when this came out and it still scared the crap outta me back then lol It definitely still has some great practical effects and gruesome deaths (that down the sink one is the one that freaked me out the most heh). Also I had a huge crush on Shawnee Smith back in those days and the really weird thing is I just finished watching The Stand today again (I usually rewatch it around Halloween time yearly) which she's also in.

Surprised no one recognized Meg as Amanda from the Saw series.

Great pick! So many of those practical effects hold up EXTREMELY well. I had seen parts of this as a kid in the 80s but never seen it in its entirety as an adult - genuinely impressed with a huge majority of the visuals - most are still creepy/gross as hell by modern standards..

Ordered my blu ray today to watch this at the end of the week. Too bad Jan couldn’t join in or have a substitute but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. I hope we get at least one or two more of these!

Great choice, great cast! This movie holds up surprisingly well.

Hell yeah! I remember watching this randomly on TV for the first time many, many years ago and I definitely didn't expect the practical effects to be on the level they were.

Great commentary too!

Ok, i'm legitimately scared to watch this one. This movie gave me nightmares when I was a kid and I don't think I've seen it since 1988. This is my The Exorcist I guess.

I am happy to rent this movie just for Kevin Dillion's hair cut. It is full and beautiful.

holy crap is Del Close in this from the album, "Basic to Hip"?

So glad they are doing more Film and 40's.

This was a great choice. Hadn't seen it and really enjoyed it. One thing the movie does so well I think is giving you just the right hints of backstory and pacing, vs going on about anything too much. Its done much better here than similar movies like The Crazies for example. And great special effects.

That phonebooth shot!

Just a warning for spoilers if you're reading comments before watching the movie. Maybe skip my comment.

After watching with the commentary I have to agree. This holds up really well in the special effects. They're really good in this film.

I had watched the original The Blob (from the 50s) a couple months or so ago so I have cool frames of reference when watching this too.

They really subvert your expectations in several ways here. Yes they have a final girl, who's the bad ass at the end which is very "this movie came after Alien and Halloween" so in a lot of ways that should be expected given when this was made. However, since it's a remake of a film from 30 years before it there are some things that are surprising given how many nods to the original film there are.

Steve Mcqueen plays the jock boy friend in the original film. In fact a lot of the opening of this movie is very similar to the original film (a large part of the original The Blob is the shitty date the jock and the girlfriend go on). Interestingly, though, this all comes to an end around the scene at the doctors office. See in the original they did the really irritating old horro movie trope for a very long time where the "hero" sees the monster and for an hour tells everyone and no one ever believes them. No matter what happens, until the monster is out in the open no one believes the hero. It's the most irritating old horror movie trope to me because most of the time it's obvious they aren't lieing! YET NO ONE BELIEVES THEM ANYWAY! It's so irritating.

Anyway, in the original the teens on the date run into a farmer that got the blob on his hand in the exact same way as the homeless guy in this one (good touch making him homeless instead of a farmer- this movie adapted a 50s movie incredibly well to the 80s more adaptation writers should learn from this movies writing) and for a good 30 minutes or more there is a lot of stuff around the doctors office and people there disappearing and the cops not believing the teens about what happened.

So coming from that the opening to this is actually really well done and subversive. You think the jock will be meaningful here because he was the hero in the 50s movie. Yet he's not, he dies at the beginning which is really good.

In the original the Blob the Jock is friends with a bunch of rowdy leather jacket wearing dudes which are all part of the plot. In this it's just the one guy and as sure as all 80s movies of the time the whole town hates the guy in the leather jacket. The difference is in this one the leather jacket guy is the secondary hero.

In the original they figure out the blob is weak to cold (which was smart even in that movie) but in that they all just spray cold stuff at it- like fire hoses and extinguishers until it freezes and then the military flies it with a helicopter to Antarctica. So that's... always been confusing to me. Honestly the ending to this one, even with it also being open ended, works better in just being weird but at least we get that they want to do more with it even though they didn't really.

The director of the original The Blob saw it as a serious horror movie. Maybe too much so because even for the time it was a goofy concept. I'd say this one actually made The Blob creepier. Anyway, this is why they came up with the famous The Blob song (that Burt Bacharach of all people made) and put it on the film. It was believed that it would help the film because the producer believed the movie to be campier than the director gave it credit for. I personally think the producer was right. I don't think the original The Blob is all that memorable on it's own. It's the song that really sticks with you. However, this remake gives the movies concept a whole new life. Despite them intending the 88 movie to be a dark comedy (any comedy you see in that one is intentional) I think they really worked hard to make the Blob a menacing creature that stands up there with any of the best 80s horror movies. It's a shame the movie didn't do that well in theaters because I think, other than the cult following it has, most don't think of The Blob when discussing 80s horrors.

This actually turned out to be a really fun and fascinating watch.

https://youtu.be/AK5jyVCdXwc (embed videos don't work anymore I guess :( )

This movie effin' rules. The OG is a classic in its own right, and this one is so good on its own terms too.

Never seen this movie before (guess I'm in the Ben and Abby camp) but I'm surprised how good it is. It hits every horror movie trope dead on.

The red fruits are like the best ones

What a great movie, loved this film&40s!