Sometimes the success of a movie hinges completely on its timing. When the remake of The Blob crash landed into theaters on August 5, 1988, it didn’t quite earn even half of its budget back. It was a flop. Perhaps audiences were tired of creature features, as the golden age of practical effects were winding down. Perhaps it was just a slow period at the box office. For whatever reason, what should’ve been a success simply wasn’t. Though the film did eventually build a cult following upon home video release, The Blob still doesn’t have the popularity it should have received 30 years ago. It’s a damn shame. One of the best horror films to emerge from the ‘80s, this horror remake is the perfect blend of characters worth rooting for, fantastic special effects, gruesome kills, and a ton of heart.
One of the ironies of this film’s failure is that it came directly on the heels of one of horror’s most beloved films of the decade; A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Released a year apart from each other, both Dream Warriors and The Blob featured screenplays co-written by Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Walking Dead) and Chuck Russell, with Russell serving as director. Both films share that spirit of fun and a cast of characters the viewer loves to root for, but The Blob manages to do it even better.
Shawnee Smith’s Meg Penny remains one of horror’s most overlooked and underappreciated final girls to this day, though I suspect it was this movie that led to Smith’s casting in Saw (give her more roles, please). She begins the narrative as the sweet cheerleader and ends as an amorphous blob fighting badass by the film’s end. It’s a brilliant role reversal when paired with Kevin Dillon’s Brian Flagg, the tough outcast who’s ultimately revealed to be a big softie. The clever character work that Darabont and Russell do with both leads is great on its own, but the first act twist with football player Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch) is absolute brilliance.
Everything about Paul screams “hero.” The definitive nice guy who does everything right (except choose his friends wisely), Paul and Meg seem like the perfect team to lead the front lines against the amorphous man-eating amoeba from space. They do the right thing without hesitation in taking the homeless man to the clinic when they run across him on their first date, the first brush with the Blob, when Brian Flagg would rather flee to avoid dealing with the police. No one would have suspected Paul to suffer such a gnarly death, and so soon.
That’s a large part of what makes The Blob so effective, even 30 years later; this weird pink blob from space kills at random. No one is safe. Not the nice guy, not the caring Sheriff Herb Geller (Jeffrey DeMunn), not even children. Granted, even the bad guys die too, like would be date rapist Scott at the scene of his own crime. But this monster has an insatiable appetite, and anything in its path enters its buffet line. Dying in horror movies is never easy but being digested whole by this monster must rank among the worst.
Special makeup effects artist Tony Gardner (Zombieland, Cult of Chucky) deserves a lot of accolades for how great the effects look, and how well this film still holds up today. The deaths are memorably icky, from Paul’s unnerving digestion to the massive theater feast, this Blob functions like a massive stomach breaking down food with acid. The death of the poor waitress, though, who escapes to the phone booth to call the Sheriff for help only to find him already there, is brutal. If you haven’t yet seen this movie, I’ll let you discover how that plays out. It’s one of the best death sequences of all time.
The Blob is one of horror’s best remakes in existence. It pays proper homage to the 1958 original but shed much of the cheesiness in favor of loveable characters and glorious practical effects. The updated origins of the creature work even better than its 1958 counterpart. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how horrible Kevin Dillon’s mullet is in the film, but don’t hold it against him. Russell pushed him into it, and his character is great regardless of ‘80s hairstyles.
Stunning practical effects work, a great story with great characters, and a huge sense of fun, it’s a shame that The Blob doesn’t have as big of a following as it should have. It’s also a shame that it’s never quite gotten a proper release (Arrow, Scream Factory, anyone; I’m begging for a proper collector’s edition here). This is one of my all-time favorites, so I’m clearly biased, but I don’t know that anyone could ever be disappointed with The Blob. Yet, if you somehow need even more incentive, then give it a watch to pick up all the Stephen King references Darabont snuck into the script. Either way, even 30 years later, The Blob is still an underdog, and one of horror’s all-time greatest.
