The Blob (1988)

Chuck Russell’s reworking of Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr’s not very good but still much loved 1958 film is a rare example of a remake that improves on the original in almost every way. It was one of a string of remakes of 50s genre films that followed in the wake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) (The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), Invaders from Mars (1986)) most of which successfully updated the originals. The original The Blob is no great shakes but it is fondly remembered for its era-defining title and its early role for Steve McQueen.

McQueen’s wholesome teen is here replaced by Kevin Dillon’s motorcycle-riding bad boy Brian Flagg who is out raising low-key hell on his bike when he discovers a homeless man (Billy Beck) whose hand has been melted off by a viscous substance he finds in a crashed meteorite. Taken to the hospital by Brian and young lovers Meg (Shawnee Smith) and Paul (Donovan Leitch, son of 60s pop balladeer Donovan), his body melts and the blob arrives to kill Paul and escape, heading for the nearby town of Arborville, California. The substance, which turns out to be a biological warfare weapon developed by the American military and launched into space when it became uncontrollable, is soon popping out of the sewers to kill the local diner owner (Candy Clark), the sheriff (Jeffrey DeMunn) and anyone else it can seep up on. As it oozes its way around town making short work of the local residents, it falls to Brian and Meg to evade capture by the military who are trying to quarantine the town and find a way to defeat the blob.

Russell (who made his debut with A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and went on to direct The Mask (1994), Eraser (1996), Bless the Child (2000) and The Scorpion King (2002) before his career faltered) and co-writer Frank Darabont (who also wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 before going on to bag Oscar nominations for The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Green Mile (1999), writing the excellent The Mist (2007) and co-creating the television adaptation of The Walking Dead (2010-)) effectively play with the expectations of those audience members familiar with the original film. We get the expected set-pieces (the old codger finding the meteorite, for example, all the panicked reaction to the blob turning up at a cinema, albeit with very different and more grisly outcomes).

They also pull the rug on the rest of the audience by casting Paul as the notional hero of he film only for him to meet a spectacularly grisly fate early on, dragged out of a window by the blob leaving Meg clutching his severed hand. They also warm the cockles of many a disgruntled cinemagoer by having a loudmouthed patron who’s ruining the film for those around him the first to go when the blob slithers into the cinema.

The physical effects are still very impressive and satisfyingly gruesome as the blob dissolves its many victims into streams of viscous goo. Supervised by Tony Gardner, they’re more indebted to the body-horror excesses of The Thing than they are to the original film. The less said about some of the back projection work however the better. But The Blob more than compensates with some striking set-pieces, none more eye-popping than the moment one victim is dragged into a sink and sucked into the plughole by the lurking blob.

The cast, as is so often the way with such things, plays second fiddle to the effects but they’re a pleasing mix of new faces (Dillon was still at the start of his career though had already been in Platoon (1986) while Smith went on to become a familiar face in TV sitcoms Becker (1998-2004) and Anger Management (2012-2014) as well as being a regular in the Saw films)) and familiar genre veterans – among them Jeffrey DeMunn (You Better Watch Out (1980), Warning Sign (1985), The Walking Dead), Candy Clark (The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Q (1982), Amityville 3-D (1983)), Joe Seneca (Crossroads (1986), Tarzan in Manhattan (1989)), Bill Moseley (Endangered Species (1982), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Night of the Living Dead (1990) and many, many more) and Paul McCrane (RoboCop (1987)). Del Close, formerly one of Ken Kesey’s “Merry Pranksters” and an acclaimed improv comedian, gets a small but interesting role as a priest who comes to worship the blob, setting up a sequel that sadly never materialised.

Despite its flaws (the characters are strictly stock, those back projections look terrible now and the end titles song, Brave New Love by Swedish band Alien is a reminder of just how awful some 80s rock music could be – even the terrible Beware of the Blob from the original film is preferable to this racket), The Blob is a fun remake that stays true to the spirit of the original film while giving it a hi-tech effects makeover, though die hard fans of the original might find the unapologetic gore a bit much. Another remake was announced in 2010 with Rob Zombie in the director’s seat but it has so far failed to appear.