The Blob

The Blob stars Steve McQueen in a role that seems inspired by James Dean—in fact, this whole movie seems a 1958 Rebel Without a Cause-infused monster flick of the legendary pulsing jellyroll from another planet (birthed here inside a meteor, the goop of which gets on this old duffer's hand and doesn't do good things for him—shades of Stephen "Big Steve" King in Creepshow).

The Blob sort of begins with a bang, a rather impressively, classically eerie title sequence (backed by an insufferable 1958 meta-referencing pop song), and then goes into a monster movie pose before beginning to drag—not even halfway through the middle—with some Eisenhower-era JD drag racing stuff that slows things to a crawl, destroying the momentum and confusing the viewer, who now surely thinks they've wandered into another theater showing another flick. McQueen—who uses his real name of Steve here—and co-star Aneta Corseaut as "Jane" sit in a classic hot rodder straight from a James Dean Day celebration, while surrounded by sinister Richie Cunningham wannabes with a mission to take Devil's Run by the horns, Dad. Or some such outlandish affair.

This takes place in the movie's outdoor limbo, which would reappear later in films such as Wes Craven's seminal shocker Last House on the Left (there, as noted by Craven, the characters "dine in limbo"), which was made sixteen years later. What we mean is it's an entirely black background—obviously a studio set—but it leads to such wack hijinks as driving backwards on a dare (we think), which call for the attention of the local heat—one of whom is intensely paranoid and bigoted against the wayward youth, be they of the "Leave it to Beaver" variety, or no.

Steve and Jane go—for reasons I can't quite remember (I recall they first ran into the old man with meteor forearm)—and Steve sees the good doctor fall from his window with some—thing, attached to his body. Thus begins some running around small-town diners, grocery stores, and the like, chasing what looks to be a huge, pulsing red gloop demon that Gilda Radner (God rest her soul) quipped, in the 1982 anthology film It Came from Hollywood, was "just some melted jujubes" (at least, I think it was jujubes).

The Blob is hideous, but also rather—I dunno. It doesn't exactly send chills up and down the spine, although if it was done-up like the 1988 remake, and had John Carpenter's The Thing or Alien-style gross-out effects (like tentacles bursting out of it, or a propensity to acidly turn victims into yellowish ichor-like slop), I suppose that would have redeemed it. At any rate, I suppose the idea of being consumed and digested by a red, animate, protoplasmic blob is enough to turn you off your popcorn.

The Blob (1958) - At the Movies

To that effect, The Blob does invade a movie theater and terrorize a crowd of horny (presumably) kids watching what is advertised on the marquee outside as a movie starring Bela Lugosi (who died two years earlier), but which actually is playing the obscure little silent picture Dementia (a.k.a. Daughter of Horror)—so, no, no Bela, although it does feature a voice-over from Ed McMahon (so I think that almost makes up for it).

Those kids should have all gone to the local passion-pit drive-in instead, because the jellied blob-like Blob comes glooping out of the vents and kids go running out of the theater (which seems to only play horror and monster flicks), and nobody is quite happy until Steve-O discovers that the pulsing jelly monster is stopped cold by—the cold. The whole town arms Armageddon-like with fire extinguishers, and someone tells Steve and gal pal to "get down into the cellar," a notion borrowed almost a decade later by George Romero for Night of the Living Dead—the cellar being a stand-in for the subconscious mind, wherein the dark, atavistic animal Self seeks to go most primitive and buried with, like, the urge to kill or be killed.

Something like that.

The Blob? No. It moves like pulsing melted jujubes. The Blah. That's much more appropriate.

Don't go picking up stray meteors. It never leads to happy endings. Just ask Big Steve (King or McQueen).

THE BLOB 1958 starring Steve McQueen

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