Blob (1958)

The Glob
The Glob That Girdled the Globe
The Meteorite Monster
The Molten Meteorite
The Night of the Creeping Dead

Cast:

Steven "I'm cool enough to be called 'Steve'..." McQueen is Steve Andrews
Aneta "Sheriff Andy Griffith would have handled the Blob quicker.." Corsaut is Jane Martin
Earl Rowe is Lt. Dave
Olin Howland is Old man
Alden 'Stephen' Chase is Dr. T. Hallen

What the IMDB says:

A mysterious creature from another planet, resembling a giant blob of jelly, lands on earth. The people of a nearby small town refuse to listen to some teenagers who have witnessed the blob's destructive power. In the meantime, the blob just keeps on getting bigger.

Plot:

In a parked teen car, Steve and Jane spot a shooting star and decide to follow it. However, some old guy is looking and finds it first.

Anyone could track Pinnochio when he had a cold... Checking the crater, the Blob gets on his hand. Our noble teens find the old guy and rush him to the local doctor.

When the doctor checks the sploch. He finds it has grown over more of his arm. Doc sends Steve and Jane back to find out if the guy has any family, etc...

Some of Steve's friends want to drag race. Deputy Dave catches Steve and is let go with just a warning.

Doc finds the blob has grown even bigger. He calls for his nurse to come back in to help him.

Steve and Jane find the crater.

At the doctor office, the old man is gone. Now it is just the Blob. Doc tries to calm his nurse down and has her throw acid on the Blob unfortunately to no avail.

Radioactive jello that thirsts for human flesh... The Blob dispatches or digests with the medical professionals.

Steve gets back to doc's office just in time to see the doc digestion. He goes to police station to them about doc.

But, Andy, you're the sheriff, you've got to do something... They're unimpressed but check it out. They can't find doc and learn that he was heading to a medical convention. The police sarge is positive this is Steve's idea of a practical joke.
After last week, calling me how Prince Albert needed to be released from a can. I don't trust you...

Blob has a couple more humanoid snacks through town.

Police station, Steve and Jane's parents are called in for their kids.

Later, both sneak out of their homes and hook up to keep investigating. Decide to recruit Steve's friends from the theater and tell them about doc's murder.

Little help here? I'm being choked..Little help here? They split up and look around town.

Steve spots his dad's grocery store still open and checks on it and finds the Blob inside. Steve and Jane head for the meat locker and see the Blob retreat from under the door crack. Later, they skulk out of the store. Trying to call the police, they get the doubting sarge again.

Steve gets the bright idea to warn the town by waking everyone up. The teens drive around town, blaring their horns, and making as much racket as possible. The town gathers outside the grocery store and ignores Steve. Deputy Dave calms everyone down. When at the theater, the Blob gets the projectionist.

In the 50s, gummi bears were definitely bigger... As it oozes into the theater, let the panicking moviegoers ensue.

The Blob is on the street. Steve and Jane spot Jane's little brother. Grabbing him they run into the nearby diner. Unfortunately, the Blob encases the diner. The cops drop a power line on the Blob to no avail. The diner catches fire. Inside, the cook uses a fire extinguisher when Steve realizes that C0₂ is so cold as to drive the Blob away.

The police realize Steve's idea about fire extinguishers. The teens rush to the high school to get all the C0₂ extinguishers.

Don't stop till you've got the cytoplasm to absolute zero... They start freezing around the blob and the diner windows so everyone can get out.

The Blob is frozen. Deputy radios the military to transport the Blob to the Arctic. The air force takes the Blob to the cold north.

What I say:

What roundtable in October would be right without some sort of monster? Well, one monster movie just didn't feel like enough so I decided to tap into another monster movie and decided to go a bit more into the primordial plasm of movie monsterdom...After last week's review of Blob (1988), I thought need to get back to the basics and the Blob is one of the prototypes of all teen/monster movies. Typically, reviewers watch the original and the remake which gets torn apart. The plot of the Blob is a fairly well known story.

What 1950s monsters are remembered? Excluding giant ants from Them or all the force perspective grasshoppers climbing on postcards in the Beginning of the End. Thankfully, the monster gorilla from the 30s and 40s were starting to die down to some degree. While the Fly is definitely one of the most memorable monsters, and Ro-Man from Robot Monser is one of the most ridiculed monsters, the Blob has to be one of the most memorable monster movies from the 1950s.

Considering he was closer to 30 than being a teenager, it is hard to believe that Steve McQueen eventually becomes one of the coolest actors in the 60s and 70s. McQueen isn't the cool guy like in the Magnificent Seven or the Great Escape. However, in this movie, he seems almost as tough as Richie Cunningham from Happy Days. Terrible shame we never saw Ron Howard battle killer jello.

How can we make the teens rebellious? But not too rebellious. If James Dean looked cool with a hot rod, wouldn't it work for other teen movies excluding say Hot Rod Girl. Even with everything else, the teens aren't quite the types you expect from movies to come in a decade, so no dirty hippie teens. The Blob teens aren't the anti-authority types even if the police and the rest of the adults don't believe them. .

The 1950s sci-fi/horror movies typically were radiation mutated people or creatures or invading aliens. Many b-movies can have the symbolism kicked into high gear afterwards. Does the Blob represent the fear of an all-encompassing 1950s communism? Invasion of the Body Snatchers has the communism idea tacked into it, too. Those kind of theories are typically the ideas that college kids ramble on late at night after doing their interpretation of how the Smurfs represent communism. I'll get off that high horse. The Blob is a movie without the super-giant massive conspiracy. Yes, this is also one of the rare movies where the government or a corporation isn't behind the monster.

Lets say a theme song has to have lyrics to stop anyone from mentioning the Indy theme or anything else by John Williams. The Blob is one of the most memorable theme songs...While it doesn't have the psycho-60s rock of Green Slime or the bad-muthna-ness (Just talking about Shaft...> of the Shaft theme song, "Beware of the Blob..It leaps and creeps, slides and glides, across the floor..." still has a memorable charm to it.

The 1988 remake of the Blob was able to stand on its own. The idea of remaking b-movies isn't the end of the world. However, it still isn't anywhere as needed as so many remakes would have you to believe. With as many as bad or forgotten movies from the 70s and 80s, why not remake a forgotten or one that bombed movie? The word is starting to float about Rob Zombie wanting to remake the Blob. After Halloween and its recent sequel, that has to have everyone start the weeping and the gnashing of teeth...

Quotable Dialogue
"I apologize on a sandwich."
"No more horseplay."
"Can I dust around the fingerprints?"
"We were just looking for a monster."
"Where is my civil defense helmet?"
Morals of the Story
Sticks can break meteorites.
Racing backwards is manly.
Animals have enough sense to run from monstrous aliens.
Cap pistols are deadly.
Rocks can open doors in emergencies.