The Blob. 1988. Directed by Chuck Russell. Written by Russell and Frank Darabont. Distributed by Sony.
Most of my favorite horror remakes have one thing in common: They're not remakes. 1982's
The Thing, 2003's
Dawn of the Dead, et cetera, are new spins on an older theme, with little more than a one-line description ("alien attacks Antarctic researchers" or "survivors fight off zombies in a mall"). Meanwhile, remakes like
The Hills Have Eyes,
The Fog, and
Psycho* have stuck to the general outline of the original films, much to their detriment.
But there are exceptions**, and the 1988 remake of
The Blob is one of my favorite remakes.
As a kid, I adored the original
Blob (and cited it as my favorite monster movie at the 1950s monster movie panel at Arisia this year). It's a great concept: a meteorite lands on earth, releasing a small blob***. A old man finds it, and gets attacked by the Blob for his troubles. Two kids stumble across the man and take him to the doctor, but the Blob eats the old man and grows, eventually attacking a bunch of folks in the town movie theatre before, in the denouement, the teens realize that the Blob is vulnerable to cold, and they freeze the monster, putting it on ice just like Han Solo in carbonite. As the Blob eats the victims, it grows, with each victim essentially becoming a part of the amorphous killing machine. Unlike the Toho movies, there was never a sense that this monster was a man in disguise. And unlike the "giant animal" movies, there was never any sense that this was a creature created with cheap f/x. What we got here was something purely, primally scary.
That said, it's not a perfect movie. Hell, its not really even a good movie. Like even the best of the low-budget monster films of the era, the acting leaves something to be desired, with even Steve McQueen turning in a performance that's a lot more earnest than believable. And the f/x, of course, are fine by '50s standards, but don't offer much flexibility. Much of what makes it enjoyable is that utter cheesiness inherent in the low-budget indie film, but that sort of charm doesn't hold up well over time.
The remake definitely features better acting and special effects, but those two changes alone wouldn't be enough to make it worth two hours of your time. No, there's a lot more to this one:
1. To begin with, there's the complete subversion of the traditional good-guy hero role. As in the original movie, we're introduced to a Nice Boy and Girl (Paul and Meg), who discover The Blob after it's claimed its first victim. Everything about the first third of the movie suggests that, once again, they'll be the heroes who save the day. Right up until Paul walks into a hospital office and gets a face-full of Blob****, and all of a sudden, the updated Steve McQueen character is dead. So who steps in? Bad boy Brian, who, in a traditional horror outline, would be an early nemesis and later ally, but would eventually die heroically at the end of the second reel*****, allowing the hero his glory in the final act. Not here. Out of nowhere, Brian is thrust into the role of reluctant hero, helping Meg try to save the town.
2. We also get a mad preacher. Mad preachers make anything better, of course******. But here, the mad Reverend Meeker, spouting about how the End Times are upon us, is played by the incomparable Del Close*******. That alone is worth the price of admission. The fact that he seems to want to actually bring about the apocalypse was amusing enough when it was filmed, and now works as a clear (and disturbing) model for Dubya and his fellow fundies. Close is both hysterical and creepy throughout, and his final scene, in which we see him storing a small piece of the Blob in a jar, just waiting for the opportunity to
launch the sequel bring about his vision, is the perfect ending to the film.
3. The Blob itself is now, thanks to some great f/x work, simultaneously malevolent and still completely and utterly alien. Somehow, without any sort of facial expression whatsoever, the creature still manages to clearly relish destroying the humans it consumes. It helps that the Blob is now capable of extruding tentacles, grabbing prey from a distance instead of slowly oozing over to them. But even when perfectly still, The Blob, with its bright red color and eerie glow, simply projects menace.
4. And there are the deaths themselves. The Blob is every bit as memorable a killer as Jason or Freddy, but two early deaths stand out. The dishwasher at the local diner thinks he's dealing with a simple clogged drain. Soon enough, however, he realizes that something much more dangerous is lurking down there, and he's grabbed by the arm and simultaneously pulled into the drain and digested (go watch that scene
here, and be thankful I spent the time to find this version, instead of the easier-to-find version that someone decided to dub with Slayer music on the mistaken assumption that Slayer can actually improve, well, anything). Shortly thereafter, the diner's owner, Fran, thinks that she's escaped, so she hits a phone booth to call the cops, only to find. . .oh, fuck it. Just hit Youtube and
check it out yourself. And there are plenty of other wonderful moments, from the offing of heroic Paul to the deaths of two Lovers Lane kids to the massacre at the movie theatre to a late scene in the sewers in which we see the rats get picked off one by one as the Blob hunts down the surviving humans.
5. Shawnee Smith is simply breathtaking as the heroine. If all you know her from are the awful, awful, awful, awful
Saw movies********, you don't know how good she can be when her character is actually believable and interesting. Her "cheerleader forced to fight evil" shtick easily predates Kristy Swanson's, and her mix of fortitude and fear come across as utterly believable.
Those are the five best things about the movie, but there's plenty more to like. The rest of the cast is solid, including Kevin "Drama" Dillon as the reluctant hero, and supporting appearances by Art LeFleur, Candy Clark, and Erika Eleniak, whose off-screen death leads to one of my favorite scenes. The addition of a government conspiracy to the plotline might reek of cliche, but it works in this movie, nicely placing the townies in a position of not being able to rely on anyone beyond their borders. And how can you not love a movie that lists "Blob Wranglers" in the credits?
The script, by Frank "
Shawshank Redemption" Darabont and Chuck Russell, is sharp and just self-aware enough to be entertaining. Russell, whose early work is much better than recent crap like
Bless the Child and
The Scorpion King, does a damned fine job here, juggling a large cast nicely, and never letting the action or the gore get in the way of the story itself.
The 1988 remake of
The Blob isn't a classic of the genre, but its certainly one of the better horror flicks to hit the market during the horror doldrums of the late-'80s/early '90s. It's got enough f/x, gore, and action to satisfy almost any fan from that side of the horror aisle, while throwing in enough twists, sharp dialogue, and interesting characters to keep the movie engaging throughout.
*A reminder: Every time someone slaps Gus Van Sant for making this movie, an angel gets its wings.
**I'll discuss more of these later this week and next.
***What? You expected E.T.?
****"Face-full of Blob" could also be the name of a really, really, really disturbing slashfic involving Fred Dukes.
*****In fairness, the town's deputy police officer fills this role instead.
******Seriously. The director's cut of Field of Dreams featuring Preacher Roe? Priceless.
*******And if you don't know who he is, stop reading right now, go grab a copy of Guru, as well as any issues you can dig up of the amazing comic book Wasteland, and then enjoy knowing all about this mad genius before watching this movie again.
********Which are, incidentally, awful. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}