The Blob
Tags: cult

Plot synopsis:
During one long night in a small rural Pennsylvania town in July 1957, teenager Steve Andrews (Steve McQueen) and his girlfriend, Jane Martin (Aneta Corsaut), are kissing on a lovers' lane when they see a meteor crash beyond the next hill. Steve decides to look for it. An old man (Olin Howland) living nearby finds it first. When he pokes the meteorite with a stick, it breaks open, and the small jelly-like blob inside attaches itself to his hand. In pain and unable to scrape or shake it loose, the old man runs onto the road, where he is nearly struck by Steve's car. Steve and Jane take him to Doctor Hallen (Stephen Chase).
Doctor Hallen is about to leave for a medical conference, but anesthetizes the man and sends Steve and Jane back to the impact site to gather information. Hallen decides he must amputate the man's arm since it is being consumed by the growing Blob. Before he can, however, the Blob completely consumes the old man, then Hallen's nurse, and finally the doctor himself, all the while increasing in size.
Steve and Jane return to the office in time for Steve to witness the doctor's death. They go to the police station and return to the house with Lieutenant Dave (Earl Rowe) and Sergeant Bert (John Benson). However, there is no sign of the creature or its victims, and Bert dismisses Steve's story as a teenage prank. Steve and Jane are taken home by their parents, but they later sneak out.
In the meantime, the Blob consumes a mechanic at a repair shop. The Blob grows in size every time it consumes something. At the Colonial Theater, which is showing a midnight screening of Daughter of Horror, Steve recruits Tony (Robert Fields) and some of his friends to warn people about the menace. When Steve notices that his father's grocery store is unlocked, he and Jane go inside. The janitor is nowhere to be seen. Then the couple are cornered by the Blob; they seek refuge in the walk-in freezer. The Blob oozes in under the door, but retreats. Steve and Jane gather their friends and set off the town's fire and air-raid alarms. The townspeople and police still refuse to believe Steve. Meanwhile, the Blob enters the Colonial Theater and engulfs the projectionist before oozing into the auditorium consuming a number of the audience. Steve is finally vindicated when screaming people flee from the theater.
Jane's young brother, Danny (Keith Almoney), fires at the Blob with his cap gun before running into the nearby diner. Jane, Danny, and Steve become trapped in that diner, along with the manager and a waitress. The Blob — now an enormous red mass from the people it has consumed — engulfs the diner. Dave has a connection made from his police radio to the diner's phone, telling those in the diner to get into the cellar before they try to bring a live power line down onto the Blob.
When it sounds quiet over the phone line, Bert shoots the wire, which falls onto the Blob and discharges a substantial electrical current. The Blob is unaffected, however, and the diner is set ablaze by the electrical current. When the diner manager uses a CO2 fire extinguisher on the fire, Steve notices that this causes the Blob to recoil. Steve then remembers that the creature also retreated from the freezer, saying "That's why it didn't come in the ice box after us. It can't stand cold!" Shouting in hopes of being picked up on the open phone line, Steve manages to tell Dave about the Blob's vulnerability to coldness. Jane's father, Mr. Martin (Elbert Smith), knows there are 20 such extinguishers at the school, and leads Steve's friends to the high school to retrieve them. Returning, the brigade of fire extinguisher-armed students and police first drive the Blob away from the diner, then freeze it, saving Steve, Jane, and the others.
Dave requests authorities send an Air Force heavy-lift cargo aircraft to transport the Blob to the Arctic, where it is later parachuted to the ice and snow pack. Dave says that while the Blob is not dead, at least it has been stopped. To this, Steve Andrews replies, "Yeah, as long as the Arctic stays cold" ("The End" title card appears and morphs into a question mark, suggesting that the Blob may return).

Review: Horror films in particular do this in spades (which is why the Scream films have been so popular), but The Blob, to me, stayed pretty true to its characters, and in so doing made a smarter and better film.Yes there are many flaws, perhaps biggest is Steve McQueen's very uneven performance, but I think they missed key opportunities for suspense that could have turned this above average, kinda scary, kinda funny movie that's a cult favourite into a true classic..
You probably know the story: two teens (Steve McQueen & Aneta Corsaut) see a meteorite hit the ground, and when they go to look for it, they run into an old man with some weird...blob attached to his arm.
And although clearly on the cheap side (check out those miniature sets, guys!), THE BLOB is actually a fairly well-made film--and there's that catchy little theme song thrown in for good measure.
It was kind of obvious how they did a lot of it,but I personally think that's part of the charm of pre-cgi effects.Bottom Line: If you're expecting great acting and character development, skip this, but if you like b- movies, it's a masterpiece..
The only notable thing about this film is that it was Steve McQueen's first big starring role.McQueen's talent is undeveloped and raw but refreshingly honest in this campy little sci-fi horror piece.
Steve shows himself as the anti-establishment, hot rod car loving actor who would become a polished icon of the film industry just five years hence.Later on, McQueen would say he hated this film and that "he was the blob".
The original one, starring the great movie star Steve McQueen (BULLET), is by far the better and only version anyone should see.The movie production is dated, but the fx used to make the Blob stands up the test of time.
This moving movie packs astonishing scenes as when the large blob exploding through the theater screen(meanwhile the spectators are seeing a film starred by Bela Lugosi, the mark of the vampire) and people stampede from cinema, furthermore when the Thing invades the Downing Town Diner among others.
The Blob was everything that a 1950s Teen/Horror flick should be.It was fun, goofy, contained plenty of laughable dialogue, and, yes, it was actually quite entertaining, in a cheesy sort of way.Bad-boy actor Steve McQueen, as Steve Andrews, leads the local teenagers into a battle to save their town from being swallowed up by a giant glop of cherry-coloured Jell-O from outer space.True.
If you are a fan of old science fiction, horror, and monster movies and you haven't seen the blob yet, you definitely need to!
A young Steve McQueen (billed as "Steven" here for the first and only time in his career) plays the plucky, square-jawed teenage hero (despite the fact that he was 27 when he made the movie) who battles valiantly against the usual group of unbelieving grown-ups (who's gonna take the word of a teen-age hot rodder?) in order to save his small town from a man-eating alien hunk of goo that crashes to earth inside a meteor and begins absorbing townspeople at an alarming rate overnight.
Admittedly "The Blob" suffers a bit from a few slow patches in the middle of the film where Steve and his fellow teens do more talking than anything else, but once the third act begins and the creature oozes into a sold-out midnight horror movie show at the local theatre, causing mass panic, it's golden.
"The Blob" is an iconic piece of 50s sci-fi/horror, no doubt, and it's just as much fun to watch today as it must've been "back in the day." "The Blob" was remade in the late 80s by "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors" director Chuck Russell (I like that version as well), and now I'm hearing that Rob Zombie's next film project will be yet another new version of "The Blob." What puzzles and worries me is that Zombie says the first thing he's going to change in his remake is that there won't be "a big, red Blobby thing.
THE BLOB is a great horror movie, not merely because of the vividly horrific images of its nearly unstoppable, flesh-dissolving title character, but because it features a real societal message.
I've seen The Blob several times and is one of the better low budget alien invasion movies from the 1950's.A strange meteor lands just outside a small town and an elderly man goes to investigate this.
A strange jelly like substance then attaches itself to one of his arms and a young couple who saw the meteor land arrive in time and take him to the local doctor's, where the old man then gets completely absorbed by the mass.
The Blob has a good rock and roll style theme song at the beginning and the movie is atmospheric throughout.The sequel, Beware!
The Blob followed in 1972 and a remake came in 1988 but this is the best of The Blob movies.The cast is lead by Steve McQueen (The Great Escape)and is the movie that made him a star and Aneta Corsaut plays his girlfriend.
It's up to Steve, Jane and the police force to put an end to it's reign of terror before it consumes everyone.Watching 'The Blob' in 2013 made me realize that this 1958 film actually dates pretty well.
It's well acted with Steve McQueen and Aneta Corsaut leading the way, and I'm sure was genuinely creepy at the time it was released.
THE BLOB (1958) **** Steve McQueen made his big screen debut in this little gem of a low-budget sci-fi quickie that has become a cult classic: a shapeless flesh-absorbing mass from outer space wreaks havoc on a small town consuming every living thing in its path and gets really big really fast!
This substance devours people and gets bigger and bigger-and it cannot be destroyed by conventional means.The late Steve McQueen does a great job as the hero Steve Andrews and credit must go to the rest of the cast, particularly those playing the three policemen who didn't believe Steve Andrew's story at first.Back to the minor faults of this film-I think it was a bit too short to realize it's full potential.
Although the direction is pedestrian, the script has an appealing air of the tongue in cheek about it to keep things entertaining and a fair smattering of out-and-out comedy also helps.From the moment we here Burt Bacarach's opening theme song "beware of the blob!" we know we're in for a good, solid, campy and light hearted movie and this is refreshingly free of the scientific investigation/jargon that tended to bog movies of this era down.
The only exception to this statement is the annoyingly cute boy whose acting is atrocious.The special effects of the blob rolling down the street and eating people are well done, with even a couple of moments of horror (like when McQueen sees the doctor being dissolved through his window) thrown in for good measure.
Fans can also enjoy a witty bit of self-referencing in which the blob attacks members of a cinema audience (a year before THE TINGLER did the same) who are themselves watching a schlocky horror film.
But will the adults listen?"The Blob" is a fun nostalgia ride that tells a good story, less about the horror than about the struggle of young people trying to do something about it.
Credit director Irvin Yeaworth, a maker of religious films who made this to help fund his other endeavors, for giving his players the room to work their own personalities into the production, rather than trying to turn it into another Hollywood spectacle.As someone with a fondness for the Eisenhower years, I get a kick out of the cool cars Steve and his buddies drive, the sense of ready community spirit, midnight movies, kissing under the stars, and the corny, good- spirited humor.
I love that although this is one of his earlier roles, he already looks middle-aged and rough...According to Jeff Sharlet in his book The Family, The Blob was "about the creeping horrors of communism" only defeated "by freezing it – the Cold War writ small and literal." This is an interesting bit of intellectual baloney -- a metaphor that works but was clearly never intended by the people involved..
It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor...." - You can bet that this super-schlocky, 1950s, teen, Sci-Fi/Horror flick is guaranteed to deliver (in all of its dead-seriousness) a literal score of priceless, unintentional laughs from start to finish.And laughs it certainly does produce - Even before the big-bad blob, in all of its gelatinous, cherry-colored glory, makes its first gooey screen-appearance.From its hilariously dumb dialog, to its totally wooden performances, to its goofy, low-budget special effects - The Blob is sure to please any hardcore fan of 1950s, B-movie junk.
When a meteorite crash spews forth a ravenous alien blob that devours everything it touches, a group of teens race to warn the disbelieving adults in town about the creature before it's rampage consumes the entire area and try to find a way to stop the creature.While it's not that bad it wasn't really all that great as there's some pretty big flaws to this one.
For those that don't enjoy that lifestyle at all, seeing them constantly talk about their school-life and social lives which results around them driving around the town in their cars listening to the bad rock-n-roll featured here that takes up as much time as it does here serve almost no entertainment value since this ends up leaving the beginning to feel way too slowed down and convoluted.
The main one about this is that when it gets back to them the attacks are a lot of fun and generate some good suspense and thrills here, from the opening shots of the injured farmer with the rapidly-spreading blob surging up his hand covering his entire arm to the attack on the workers in the hospital as well as the teens' investigation of his shack in the hills which is quite creepy.
When you think about it The Blob is your ultimate doomsday weapon.The soon to be legend Steve McQueen got his first starring role in The Blob, a 28 year old playing a teen who is out getting down to business with Aneta Corsaut when a passing meteor lands, cracks open, and out pops this Jello like creature which just absorbs whatever is living around it on contact and just grows.
The acting was serviceable for a 'teen movie of the 1950s, at least to my recollection from 1967 or '8, but at that latter day Steve(n) McQueen definitely did carry it off as a teen-ager.THE BLOB is a good period piece, a horror film with a s.f. gloss to give it legs.
A classic of science fiction, and probably the most original monster to appear on film, The Blob continues to entertain today over forty years after its release.
The teenagers trying to get the police to believe the existence of the blob and an increasing number of people vanishing makes this seem like almost a detective story at times, which makes for a nice variety in the movie's theme.This is not a movie to be taken seriously; the film is well made and not a parody, but there are no hidden meanings or major social commentary here and it is simply a good piece of science fiction.
I was sitting in the Towne Theatre in Fargo ND in '58 with 8 or 9 fellow 6th graders & my knuckles were getting tighter and whiter by the minute...at the exact moment the Blob started oozing into the diner window I suddenly remembered I had a dentist appointment which I made sure each of my pals knew as I clambered down the row toward the aisle...I'll never know how many others remembered theirs after I left but this movie was a B corker (I saw it later ..ie when I had by then grown a beard)..Creature With the Atom Brain 1955 also cleared me out of the theater immediately when the young soldier 1st encountered the zombie in the 1st scene in the sewer when you were shown the silhouette of the zombie cracking the unfortunates back like a chicken bone...I managed to sit still for the river of flesh eating ants in Green Mansions in 1959...all seems tame now compared to I-44 in St. Louis now..happy 2007 everyone.
It stars a young Steve McQueen (although not as young as the part he's playing) and Aneta Corsaut (Helen Crump herself) as two teenagers who try to warn people in their hick town about a red blob that came to Earth in a meteorite.
Anyway, looking at the film anew, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it (despite many a narrative flaw, which I will get to later) – as a pure example of 'B-movie' schlockiness (atypically shot in pleasant color) and a time-capsule illustrating late 1950s social attitudes.
The special effects depicting the slimy and expanding creature are not too bad of its kind and period; the film itself rises to a good climax – beginning with the monster's invasion of a cinema (showing DAUGHTER OF HORROR [1953/7] as I mentioned recently in that film's review but being curiously screened 'flipped' and which sequence, incidentally, would be featured at the opening of a satirical Italian program actually called "Blob"!).
As to the admittedly minor quibbles I have with the film: the monster is not shown traveling – it just turns up at a variety of places, never being seen by anyone!; there is a baffling over-emphasis (tantamount to padding) on the kids' scrapes with Police; it is silly to have the town doctor shoot at The Blob – as if fluid, whatever its proportion, can be destroyed by bullets!; equally nonsensical is having the teenagers alert the townsfolk of the danger by making door-to-door visits (especially when considering that, at that stage, only McQueen had actually seen the monster in action)!
This film needs no introduction to fans of classic horror/sci-fi, but known best of all for it's star, Steve McQueen.
It was from an era that produced some of the finest classic black and white films and compared to other horror movies of the time it holds it's own.
This B-Movie Horror film has probably been watched millions of times and it's survived remakes and it still stands the test of time as an all time classic.
Early appearances of cinematic icons are always fascinating, but "The Blob" not only features Steve McQueen's third screen role, and second as a star, but remains one of the great cheap horror films.
The Blob is serious - it does have a scary alien creature that does in fact kill people - but it's also the quintessential example of what makes a movie "campy" - right from the very start with the very 50's and therefore very appropriate theme song, which gives it the dated, campy feel right away.The story is about a meteorite that falls to earth, and when it breaks open, out pops - well - a living blob of some sort that consumes people.
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but the thought occurred to me.The story is pretty good, the cast is decent (although McQueen was a bit old for the part - he's playing a teen, but he was close to 30 when this was made) and it's wonderfully short (not even an hour and a half) and therefore very fast paced, making it even more enjoyable to watch.
I also liked the old man in the beginning.For a 50's horror movie, this was very well done even by today's standards.8/10..
But like all good teen movies, the kids know more than the adults and save the day.
It's hard to take a movie like this very seriously and it's clumsy film-making only adds to this, which in return makes this strangely enough a very entertaining one to watch.Perhaps it's actually being due to the fact that this movie has such an unlikely but original monster in it that it works out far better and more entertaining than just the average genre attempt, from around the same time period.
It's definitely kind of surreal seeing the great Steve McQueen acting in a type of movie like this one.
It's nothing more than a fun fact that this movie features Steve McQueen but just don't expect him to shine in this, though his charisma and sort of bad boy look and behavior is already very notable.For a B-monster movie from the '50's, with science-fiction elements in it, the movie definitely has some surprising good effects in it as well.
"The Blob" is a Fifties sci-fi/horror b-movie featuring an early performance from the soon-to-be King of Cool, Steve McQueen.It tells the story of a small-town boy and girl who witness a comet landing on earth.
It is not, unfortunately, scary; pretty hard to be intimidated by what looks like a piece of jelly (Jell-O to our American friends).The movie has themes and scenes that are now very familiar to us: the small town's teenagers are the only ones who know what's going on, but none of the people in charge listen, because nobody takes them seriously.
The blob is kind of scary, but mostly just gooey and the cast takes things just a little too lackadaisical for a horror/thriller movie.
Without going into plot details, let's just say it's an uphill struggle for McQueen and his teen friends to get any of the townspeople to believe their story about The Blob until the monster brings his menace to a midnight horror show in the heart of town.All of the supporting actors are competent enough although there are no names in the low-budget cast.