THE BLOB (1958)
Mmmmmm.......blobalicious......
Actually, I wasn't too impressed with this one. Sure, I'd expected something dated, campy, and absurd, but I didn't really anticipate it being so, well, dull. There's only so much of "Steven" McQueen running around trying (unsuccessfully) to get people to believe him that I can take. I definitely prefer the Chuck Russell/Frank Darabont 1988 remake - one of those rare cases of the remake surpassing the original. See, that's what remakes oughtta be - new takes on something that was a good idea but wasn't pulled off that well in the first place.
There are some laughs, and some good moments of blob action, but overall, just kind of ho-hum, lacking even that sort of "50's camp" charm, for the most part (except maybe for the silly title song played during the opening credits, which is cute). The front of the box promises "WILD TEENAGERS AND HOPPED-UP CARS!" This was once a selling point?
So, how did the blob come back in Beware The Blob? Global warming, perhaps? (they did, after all, say "...as long as the Arctic stays cold...") Nah, that wasn't even a concept until the seventies, maybe the eighties. The blob effects were pretty cool though - nice and slimy, as they oughtta be.
Reminds me of when I was into Dungeons & Dragons as a kid...they had all the blob-possibilities in that there Monster Manual...the feared Green Slime...the dreaded Ocher Jelly...the savage and feral Grey Ooze...and most feared of all, the horror of the Black Pudding! (where was the "Brown Blob"? The "Magenta Goo"? The "Blue Sludge"?) That's what we need. A blob vs. blob Dungeons & Dragons movie. Ninety minutes of knock-down, drag-out Black Pudding vs. a collusion of the Green Slime, Ocher Jelly and Grey Ooze. Set it in small-town America, and we've got a movie.