The Blob (1988) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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There’s always room for The Blob!

Remakes of popular films can be worthwhile or a waste of time. This was as true in 1988 as it is today. So how does this remake of The Blob stack up against the 1958 original? And what has it got to offer fans of this oozing monstrosity?

First Impressions

The trailer tells you that the monster in this film has no mind, no body, and no heart so there is no way to reason with it or kill it. Some scientists in biohazard suits show up to help or maybe get a sample of The Blob. The narrator tries to coin a new phrase that “terror has no shape.” That’s a B-plus effort.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

The town of Arborville, CA is empty on a cool fall day because everyone is at a high school football game. Football player Paul (Donovan Leitch) asks cheerleader Meg (Shawnee Smith) out that evening, while rebellious bad boy Brian (Kevin Dillon) tries to jump a broken bridge on his motorcycle, up in the mountains. Sheriff Herb (Jeffrey DeMunn) also asks waitress Fran (Candy Clark) out to a concert, but she has to work. She does tell him she gets off at 11pm. Townsfolk are somewhat apprehensive about the upcoming ski season. If there’s not enough snow the lack of tourism will force the town to close.

An old hobo (Billy Beck) witnesses a meteorite crash. Investigating he discovers a viscous substance that attaches itself to his hand. He stumbles into the road where Paul and Meg bump him with their car. Brian, who also was trying to help the man, agrees to come with them to the hospital so nothing can be blamed on him. The old man is placed in a room at the hospital, while the doctor is busy with another patient. Paul checks on the man, discovering he has been partially dissolved by whatever was on his arm. A gigantic, oozy blob attacks Paul right in front of Meg.

Deputy Briggs (Paul McCrane) believes Brian to be responsible, in some fashion. Meg tries to explain to the Sheriff about the blob, but no one believes, not even her parents. Two other teenagers, Scott (Ricky Paull Goldin) and Vicki (Erika Eleniak) are parked, with the boy trying to get the girl drunk. As he fills their cups from his bar in the trunk the blob enters the car. He tries to go for “second base” and is consumed by the gelatinous alien.

The police let Brian go for lack of evidence, and he and Meg get a quick bite in the diner, where the cook, George (Clayton Landey), is pulled violently into the sink by a tentacle from the monster. Meg and Brian hide in the freezer where the blob refuses to go. Instead it follows Fran, who is trapped in a phone booth trying to call the sheriff. She manages to see him, stuck in the pinkish-purplish ooze just before she is eaten. Reverend Meeker (Del Close) stumbles into the deserted diner and finds frozen, crystalized pieces of the blob which he collects in a jar.

Meg and Brian attempt to locate Briggs, but end up being taken prisoner by a bunch of government personnel in white hazmat suits, led by Doctor Meddows (Joe Seneca). They inform the kids that the town is under quarantine and they are being placed in a secure facility. Brian escapes the van and heads into the woods. The blob attacks the projectionist (Frank Collison) causing a panic at the movie theater, where Meg’s younger brother Kevin (Michael Kenworthy) and friend Eddie (Douglas Emerson) are trapped. Meg gets them out and leads them into the sewers, chased by the blob.

Brian overhears the government men admitting that the blob is a mutated viral experiment in bio warfare that crashed outside the town. Brian rescues Meg and Kevin (Eddie gets unfortunately dissolved) and tries to tell the townsfolk of the ruse. Meddows is grabbed and eaten, and his men decide to fight back rather than preserve the creature. Trying flamethrowers and bullets have no effect, but Meg realizes that CO2 fire extinguishers stop it. Brian grabs the local snow making machine and crashes it into the creature as Meg uses an explosive pack from a dead soldier to blow up the tanks, crystallizing the creature. A coda features a scarred Reverend Meeker speaking about the day of reckoning and showing he still has a small amount of the blob left.

“Your meteor brought something all right but if it’s a germ, it’s the biggest son of a bitch you’ve ever seen!” – Brian Flagg

History in the Making

The 1988 remake of The Blob was one of several late-70s/80s remakes of classic 50s sci-fi horror films, which also included Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956/1978), The Thing (1951/1982), The Fly (1958/1986), and Invaders from Mars (1953/1986). This version of The Blob was released almost 30 years to the month after the original 1958 version. These new versions of the films listed above updated the material to the modern world, often changing the subtext and social commentary, either wholesale or by enhancing it considerably. For example, John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing from Another World went from an alien monster terrorizing an arctic outpost to a paranoid thriller dealing with who, or who is not, human. The Blob also made numerous changes to the details of its story, adhering to the major elements of the original, but infusing a number of new elements and fake-outs to entertain fans.

This was not the first Blob movie since 1958. In 1972 Beware! The Blob hit theaters, directed by Larry Hagman (an actor best known for I Dream of Jeannie and Dallas). It was considered to be a failure, both commercially and critically, and is often remembered as the only film directed by Hagman. It does feature a younger Del Close as a “hobo wearing eyepatch” which makes his appearance as an eyepatched Reverend all the more interesting. This version of the film was directed by Chuck Russell and was only his second feature film. His first film was the previous years’ three-quell A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. He is probably best known for his next film, the Jim Carrey vehicle, The Mask, or perhaps infamously known for his sequel to The Mummy, The Scorpion King. The Blob’s screenplay was co-written by Russell and Frank Darabont, who would become closely associated with Stephen King’s adaptations of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, the horror film The Mist and as a showrunner for the first season of The Walking Dead television series. This was his second outing with Russell whom he had co-written Dream Warriors with.

Genre-fication

The Blob does what any good remake should do. It picks a film that would benefit from a new version, not just remaking a film as a vanity project. And it updates that story and characters into a more modern version hopefully with better special effects. This was accomplished by most of the remakes listed above, though Invaders From Mars was much more a reshoot of the original film, having few differences. As a brief recap, the original version of The Blob featured Steve McQueen in a leading role as one of several youth that have seen the gelatinous creature, but are not believed by the authorities. It then becomes up to him and his friends to figure out a way to stop the creature from outer space. Oh, and there’s also a scene in a movie theater. The 1988 version sticks to this original formula pretty well. A meteorite crashes with the creature, infects an old man, young adults/teenagers are not believed, the creature goes on rampage and grows as it eats, invades the local movie theater, until finally being stopped by citizens with freezing technology.

Those elements, culled from the original 1958 film, are there as an homage to the original story. Certainly the structure could have been dictated as anything. But outside of those elements, the characters and situations are decidedly more modern, utilizing new technology to make the creature more menacing (and more sentient), while shaking things up for viewers that were already familiar with the story. Perhaps the biggest change is the killing of Paul early on in the film. Influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the killing of lead actress Janet Leigh midway through the film, Russell and Darabont killed off the lead “jock” placing Meg into the lead role. At this point it becomes clear that Meg is in the Steve McQueen role, as she is not believed by parents or police and is the character that provides the forward momentum for the remainder of the film.

The film continues to set up other interesting characters only to kill them off in an increased body count. Easily a dozen graphic deaths occur, plus some harrowing near misses. The Blob also created more of a backstory for the monster, as was the fashion in the 80s. Instead of a random rock containing an amebic alien, it’s an American satellite with a biological weapon that has accidentally (or perhaps on purpose) fallen back to Earth. Since the Blob itself was bigger in this film, the ending of the film too was also bigger. Instead of the townsfolk using handheld fire extinguishers to stop the creature, the explosion of a liquid nitrogen tanker is used to crystalize the creature. It is put into cold storage in the town until it can be dealt with, instead of being flown to the Arctic and dropped off. And in a continued 80s horror setup for a sequel, the Reverend, who has become somewhat unhinged from the ordeal, is shown with a small sample of the creature still alive.

Societal Commentary

The science-fiction films of the 1980s, as well as some of the horror films, played off the cold war tensions and conspiracy theories of 1970s thrillers like Three Days of the Condor or The Parallax View by making the government an antagonist; either partially or wholly. Films like Escape from New York, Night of the Comet, Return of the Living Dead and They Live all have government agencies implicit in the schemes related to the core elements of the film. Often, vast cover ups and conspiracies abound in order to subvert the protagonists from revealing the existence of the problem, such as kidnapping the heroes in Night of the Comet. The Blob has a similar focus. In this case, an unnamed government agency–with assistance of presumably the Army, makes landfall in the town shortly after the meteorite crashes.

Dr Meddows, who is the project lead, appears to be a genial older man hiding behind a hazmat suit. When Meg and Brian first meet the M-16 wielding soldiers, he speaks to them with a gentle tone and grandfatherly advice. But soon it is revealed that his intention is to procure the specimen (The Blob) as he considers the people of the town collateral damage. His final order, prior to his getting sucked into the sewer by a jelly-like tentacle, is to kill Brian who he tells the local townsfolk is “infected” with the “plague” they are trying to stop. It’s obvious that the men underneath him are uneasy with his command and plans. They seem to question his authority and hesitate to follow his orders as rapidly as he would prefer. Once he is killed, the other soldiers decide to help the populace of Arborville stop the oozing creature, rather than punishing them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In fact, all authorities in The Blob are portrayed as corrupt or of dubious ethics in one way or another. Sheriff Herb is the nicer of the two police officers, but still harasses Brian as he drives through town. Both he and Griggs assume that every infraction in town is Brian’s fault and remind him constantly about the lack of trust he inspires. Definitely a case of creating the problem rather than trying to find a solution. The doctor and his receptionist are the next ones to be shown in an ill light. When the trio of youths run in with an injured man, she is more concerned with whether the man has insurance over getting him help. The doctor is with another patient, she tells them with a disinterested air. The doctor doesn’t seem too concerned at the kids either, presumably thinking they’re overreacting. Finally religion is put on the spotlight as evidenced by Reverend Meeker. He seems mild mannered enough in his initial interactions, but after being caught in a flamethrower attack gone wrong, his demeanor changes. The coda of the film, which is really a tease for any potential sequel, shows him spouting fire and brimstone in a good old fashioned tent revival. When asked by a parishioner when the “Day of Reckoning” will be, he stares at a small amount of Blob in a mason jar and tells her soon. “The Lord will give me a sign,” he adds. All of this evidence of the film’s lack of trust in established institutions and the preference to put trust in the individual instead, with Brian being the ultimate model of anti establishment energy.

The Science in The Fiction

Science running amok is a tried and true formula for sci-fi horror films that goes back as far as Frankenstein. Films either portray scientists as crazy loners that circumvent ethics and common sense to break the boundaries of man’s knowledge (The Invisible Man, The Fly) or as ill-prepared theorists that have no idea of what might happen in the real world (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park). This remake of The Blob seems to be a combination of the two aspects, having Dr Meddows as the unethical and dubious scientist, but also one that is unable to conceive the real-world consequences of his actions. Meddows speaks of the current research putting them ahead of the Russians only to have another scientist point out that “at this rate, by next week there may be no US,” given the growth of the Blob.

In fact, Meddows as a scientist returns to the distrustful nature of sci-fi scientists that date back to 1950s films like Them and Tarantula. In those days the military was often heralded, and scientists were vilified, a theme that had reversed itself, somewhat, by the 1970s. Meddows overtly refers to the Blob as an “experiment in biological warfare,” which is the “greatest breakthrough in weapons research since man split the atom.” This research will be a boon to the United States, he feels, and one that is “more important than a handful of people in this small town.” Science gets the shaft due to the actions of a few bad apples.

The conclusion of the film also revolves around a scientific discovery, but one made at a simpler level by the public. Meg and Brian are both in a position to understand the best way to kill the creature, or at least incapacitate it. Of course, the remake makes the ending bigger and better than the 1958 film. Realizing that the cold of the fire extinguishers can stop the monster, Brian uses his connection to Moss’s snow cat repair operations where he knows they keep a snow making machine. This is never explicitly teased earlier in the film but Brian does visit the shop, and this is a ski-resort town that would have access to such devices. The liquid nitrogen tanks on the truck have plenty of cooling power to turn the giant chunk of evil jello into a frozen strawberry icee. A relatively low-tech solution for a high-tech creature.

The Final Frontier

The Blob ended up being a lackluster film during the summer of 1988. It could be a factor of multiple things including a lack of publicity, but also the fact that this particular summer had tons of huge hits including Die Hard, A Fish Called Wanda, Cocktail, and Young Guns. It’s not that it’s a bad film, it just didn’t seem to resonate with the audiences at the time. The film is certainly full of fun elements for film fans. With Frank Darabont being a big fan of Stephen King’s work, and even adapting a King short story in 1983, presumably he is responsible for a couple references to The Stand, King’s voluminous work about a killer virus that wipes out the majority of humanity. The two obvious references include Brian’s bad boy attitude, mullet, and last name, Flagg, as a nod to leather-clad, bad boy Randall Flagg in King’s book. Additionally the old hobo that is the Blob’s first victim is named “Can Man” in the credits, a nod to “Trashcan Man” in The Stand.

The cast is made up of a number of actors that had backgrounds in horror films, or would go on to work in the franchise again. Kevin Dillon starred in a sci-fi/comedy/horror film called Remote Control, while Shawnee Smith would be asked to join the Saw franchise in the early 2000s. Additionally Jeffrey DeMunn was a character actor that has appeared in most of Darabont’s other films. The Blob was also not the only film from 1988 that referenced the original film. That other honor belongs to the comedic Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which has a very similar opening to the 1958 film.

Thank you for reading this mid-point entry for 31 Days of Horror this month, as it crosses over with the regular Sci-Fi Saturdays articles. Each day this month features a new article on a horror film. This last week included the 100th Anniversary of Nosferatu, a classic German vampyre film. Upcoming films will include some more modern films like The Descent and Wrong Turn, plus each Saturday for the rest of the month will include sci-fi infused horror films.

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