The Blob (1988 film)

Plot

A meteorite crashes near Arborville, California. An elderly transient discovers, within the sphere, a massive slime mold-like substance that adheres to his hand. Three high school students, Brian, Meg and Paul, take him to a hospital. After Brian leaves, Paul witnesses the lower half of the transient melting from exposure to the Blob. As he calls for help, the Blob drops on top of him. Meg arrives to see Paul being devoured by the growing Blob. While she tries freeing him, his arm dissolves off, Meg is thrown against a wall and knocked unconscious, and the Blob oozes out of the hospital.

After Brian and Meg have unsatisfactory encounters with the police, they meet at a diner where Meg tells Brian about the Blob. Brian's disbelief is shattered when the diner's handyman is pulled through a sink drain by the Blob. It pursues them to the diner's walk-in freezer, but the Blob retreats after entering the freezer. After consuming the diner's owner Fran Hewitt and Sheriff Geller, the Blob reenters the sewers. Meg and Brian return to the police station, where the dispatcher tells them Deputy Briggs is near the meteor-landing site. They discover a military operation led by a scientist, Dr. Meddows, who orders the town and the two teens quarantined. While Brian escapes, Meg is taken to town where she learns her younger brother, Kevin, is missing. Meg learns he and his friend, Eddie, sneaked into the movie theater. The Blob enters the theater, attacking the staff and audience. Meg arrives as the audience flees the theater, rescuing Eddie and Kevin.

Brian eavesdrops on Meddows and learns that the Blob is a biological warfare experiment created during the Cold War, launched into space because it was so dangerous. Learning that the Blob has entered the sewers, Meddows decide to trap it there, even if that means allowing Meg, Kevin, and Eddie to die. Brian is discovered listening in and evades military personnel by driving his motorcycle into the sewers. In the sewers, Meg and Kevin flee from the Blob when it emerges and devours Eddie. Kevin escapes by scaling a pipe to the surface, and Meg is saved by Brian, who confronts Meddows in front of the townsfolk and Briggs. After failing to convince everyone Brian is contaminated and must die, Meddows attempts to shoot him, but is killed by the Blob as it oozes into his chemical suit and drags him into the sewer. Then the Blob feasts upon the population, impervious to the military's attempts to stop it, killing Colonel Hargis and multiple others. The town's Reverend Meeker proclaims the scene to be the prophesied end of the world, after which a failed flamethrower attack on the Blob sets him ablaze. Meg saves him with a fire extinguisher, and in the process blasts the Blob with it. When the monster backs off, she realizes that the Blob cannot tolerate cold.

The survivors retreat to the town hall and hold the Blob off with furniture-barricades and fire extinguishers, but it is a losing battle; the Blob engulfs half the building and devours Briggs. Brian goes to the town's garage and gets a snow maker truck that has canisters of liquid nitrogen attached. As the Blob is about to consume Meg and her family, Brian shoots snow at the creature, which is angered and knocks the truck over. As the Blob surges toward Brian, Meg lures it away from him toward the canisters, which she has rigged with an explosive charge taken from a dying soldier. She tries getting clear, but snags her foot between two pieces of metal, trapping her. Brian regains consciousness and runs over to free her. The Blob is about to overrun them when the charge goes off, blowing up the canisters and covering the Blob in liquid nitrogen. The creature is flash-frozen, shattering into a mass of crystallized pieces. Moss Woodley has its remains stored in the town ice house.

Later, at a tent-meeting church service in a field, Meeker, disfigured by his burns and secretly driven insane, preaches a doomsday sermon resembling the Blob's attack. He has a still-living piece of the Blob, trapped inside a glass jar, to eventually unleash it once more upon the world.

Production

Screenwriter Frank Darabont first met director Chuck Russell in 1981, while working as a production assistant on the film Hell Night. Before working together on The Blob, the two also collaborated on the script for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

Actor Del Close had been scheduled to direct a "mock opera" about Ronald Reagan at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts during the filming of The Blob. The opera, entitled Ron Giovanni, was to feature the writing of Tony Hendra and the music of Paul Jacobs in a story that combined details of Reagan's life with the story of Don Juan. Rehearsals were to run during November and December 1987, with an opening date of January 22, 1988. However, the production was cancelled by Lincoln Center's artistic director Gregory Mosher, out of concern that the show's satire was not as funny and unbelievable as some recent actions performed by the real Reagan, such as the controversy over his visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg housing the bodies of members of the Waffen-SS. As a result, the Chicago-based Close was unexpectedly available to audition for The Blob in New York at a time when Russell was conducting auditions in the city. Fortuitously for Close, he had recently written a blob-themed story for the DC Comics horror anthology Wasteland, while Russell had just watched an example of Close's work as the in-flight movie on his flight in to New York, Brian DePalma's The Untouchables. Close had worked in the past as a fire eater and human torch, and he was set on fire for some insert shots within the film. He also lost a substantial amount of weight at the request of Russell, dropping from 198 pounds to 173 pounds during the course of the production.

Production began on January 11, with the cast and crew of approximately 150 staying at a Travelodge in Abbeville, Louisiana. Due to the large amount of night shooting, the cast often slept during the day. On their off days, they watched videos at the hotel and ate crawfish, a popular item of local cuisine.

Special effects in the film were handled by Tony Gardner. Gardner was originally supposed to provide only a few small effects, but after personnel changes he ended up running a crew of 33, including artist Chet Zar and mechanical effects designer Bill Sturgeon. Close's makeup for his role as Reverend Meeker required extensive preparation time: five-and-a-half hours for scenes where Meeker had fresh burns, and seven-and-a-half hours for scenes after his burns had healed.

Analysis

The film functions as a conspiracy theory film. The threat of the original film was an alien entity from outer space. The remake differs in making the threat a biological weapon, created by a secret government agency. The Blob is closely followed by soldiers and scientists in protective suits. The change reflects the mentality of a more cynical era. The sinister government agents are opposed by rebellious teenager Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon). His depiction as a rebel and a "tough guy punk" includes wearing a leather jacket, sporting long hair, driving a motorcycle, and distrusting authority figures.

Jacqueline Foertsch argues that the Blob of the original film served as a symbol of communist ideology. The more "deathlike" 1980s version served as a metaphor for the AIDS pandemic. The dull-red colors of the original changes here to a glistening, pearly grey. The change makes the creature resemble a mucous membrane. While the original creature rolled and lumbered on, the newer version slides and strikes aggressively, using phallic tentacles. The original Blob was a singular organism which increased its size, strength, and velocity by feeding. The newer version is a microbial colony which not only enlarges itself, but also splits into multiple parts, allowing for simultaneous attacks in multiple locations. Indeed, the largest part of the creature is eventually frozen and contained, but a crazed preacher hoards a few shards, implying the survival of the threat.

Foertsch calls attention to another significant shift from the original. The Blob invades the bodies of its victims and springs from the remnants of a previous host to seize a new victim. For example, Vicki is infiltrated by the creature and becomes its host. When Scott reaches to touch her breast, the creature emerges to engulf him.

Box office

The film was released theatrically in the United States by TriStar Pictures in August 1988. It grossed $8,247,943 at the box office, making it a box office flop.

Critical reception

The film holds an approval rating of 61% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 5.8/10. Author and film critic Leonard Maltin gave the film two out of a possible four stars, calling it a "Needless, if undeniably gooey, remake". Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film "is more violent than the original, more spectacular, more cynical, more patently commercial and more attentive to detail", but noted that "for reasons having nothing to do with merit, the 1958 film earned a place in history. The remake, enterprising as it is, won't do the same".

Chuck Bowen of Slant Magazine wrote that the film "improves on the original cult classic with inventive, gracefully repulsive special effects and an agreeable post-Watergate anti-authoritarian message". HorrorNews.net gave the film a score of "4 1/2 out of 5", writing that "the twists that this film takes that differ from the original make it all the more terrifying and oddly enough... plausible".

Home media

The film was released on DVD in the United States by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in September 2001. Sony again released The Blob in September 2013 as part of its "The 4-Movie Horror Unleashed Collection", along with Fright Night, Christine and The Seventh Sign. The film was released on Blu-ray in the United States by Twilight Time on October 14, 2014.