Monster of the Day #51

Updated on June 22, 2010 By Ken Begg 23 Comments

In the immortal words of Mr. Burt Bacharach

It creeps and leaps
and glides and slides
across the floor
right through the door
and all around the wall
a splotch a blotch

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  • TongoRad

    The original still holds up really well as a movie I think, with some truly nice suspence elements. That whole sequence in the supermarket is just fab.

    This was always a childhood favorite, and I have resisted watching the remake (1980’s?) out of some sort of loyalty that makes less and less sense the older I get. Maybe I’ll check it out one of these days.

  • Ericb

    The monster that scarred me most as a child. I would have trouble sleeping for days after viewing this movie but for some reason I always wateched it when it was broadcast.

  • BeckoningChasm

    As I’ve noted elsewhere, one of the creepiest aspects of this guy (gal?) is that he’s the only 50’s monster who didn’t have any sound–no screaming, no radioactive noise, nothing. He could be JUST AROUND THE CORNER and you’d have no warning.

    The remake has a multitude of sins, but the worst in my opinion is that they made the blob noisy.

  • Gamera

    One of the scariest of all monsters in IMHO since you can shoot it, stab it, whatever to no effect since it’s just- well a blob of protoplasm that eats and grows. Even freezing it just made it sluggish and ultimatly inert but not dead. And no scientist whips up a death ray to kill it in the eleventh hour.
    Maybe I’m overthinking this but if it landed in the ocean and kept eating sea life and growing out of human view it would have become unstoppable.

    Now that I think about it the blob was sorta a movie version of a shoggoth…

  • BC — Yes, thus the scene in the garage, which is just really, really gross.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Ken – yeah, but the guy’s talking about stepping out on his wife, making the Blob a very moral monster!

  • I’ve heard of an old nerd argument that goes “What would win in a fight: The Blob or The Thing (John Carpenter’s Version)? The Blob consumes other lifeforms and The Thing copies other lifeforms. Would this be a case of the irrestible force meeting the immovable object?

    Discuss.

  • Rock Baker

    Still the champion of all killer glop movies! X-The Unknown and The H-Man have their moments (Haven’t seen Caltiki The Immortal Monster yet), but The Blob continues to satisfy on every level. A perfect example of a 50s drive-in monster movie.

    Then they had to ruin it with that weird sequel and pointless ‘remake’ that just seems to mock fans of the unsettling orginial. The Blob is like King Kong, every new movie he makes is worse than the previous one for one reason or another.

    As for Blob vs Thing, if Thing becomes the Blob then the outcome is the same as if the Blob just eats the Thing. Either way, not good news for humanity!

  • zombiewhacker

    As for Blob vs. Thing, don’t forget the Thing can replicate itself and become multiple Things, thereby being several places at once. I’d rather take my chances with the Blob. At least you only have to deal with one Blob at a time.

    Also the Blob won’t disguise himself as your pet dog or (even scarier) Wilford Brimley.

    Back yeah, all that being said, this is the monster that scared the most crap out of me when I was kid. Bar none.

    Now if you don’t mind, I’m off to read Joseph Payne Brennan’s “Slime.” (heh heh)

  • Petoht

    I remember watching this as a jaded kid who thought he was too cool for cheesy old monster movies. During one of the tense scenes, I was on the floor watching in rapt attention…

    And then…

    My freaking dad clapped his hands really loud and scared the crap outta me. I’m not sure what was worse: the scare or his mocking laughter. I never looked down on old movies again, though.

    As for the remake, the problem I had with it was it trying to have a “message”. Ruined the whole thing for me.

  • People, people, let’s not malign the 1980s remake of The Blob. Certainly it has imperfections, but they’re imperfect in the RIGHT way. Some examples:

    1) DEL CLOSE absolutely gnawing the scenery as a deranged preacher.
    2) A young Shawnee Smith as the heroine.
    3) The football hero you assume will be the protagonist is horribly consumed by the Blob in one of the earliest scenes.
    4) Kevin Dillon (Matt’s bro) outriding the Blob on his motorcycle.
    5) The boy getting killed in the sewer. If you were a boy under 15, seeing this part SCARED THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU. Outside of Jaws, this was something that just didn’t happen in movies, and certainly nowhere as graphically.

    I wish stupid Zombie wasn’t remaking The Blob. I count the 80’s version as part of that great spate of horror remakes of the time (The Fly, The Thing, even the early 90’s Body Snatchers). Plus it had hair metal. I love that Blob.

  • Rock Baker

    Let’s put it this way, the remake might’ve been easier to take had they called it something besides “The Blob.” (And I admit I haven’t seen it in a long time, but I can’t remember ANYone being likable in the remake.)

  • Dennis Fischer

    The lyricist was Hal David–Burt simply wrote the music. Catchy tune, innit?

  • The critical failure of the 80s Blob for me was trying to make something utterly, horribly alien, into just another evil gummint experiment. That bugged me a LOT and still does. I agree with Lovecraft that fear of the unknown is the oldest and strongest fear, and “taming” the blob by giving it an origin story hurt it a lot, despite the good effects.

    Much as I respect Carpenter’s Thing, the Blob would totally eat its lunch. I don’t think the Thing can resist being digested – for that matter I doubt the Blob has DNA at all. It only reproduces by means of fission if at all.

    Shoggoths rule.

  • David Fullam

    Was Mr. Lugosi one of the Blob’s victims? He was in the theater to do his Midnight Spook Show.

  • zombiewhacker

    And I noticed that theater had air conditioning. Shouldn’t that have kept the Blob OUT of the theater? A/C saved Robert Walker Jr. and Gwynne Gilford in “Beware the Blob.”

  • Marsden

    Was the Blob immune to radiation or microwaves? I think the Thing would outsmart it. Also, could the blob be divided? No one went after it with a sword but it probably would seal back after the blade, but if something actually divided it, like forcing it through a duct with a juction splitting it in two. Wouldn’t both parts live?

    Sandy’s got it exactly right about the remake, the stupid experiment angle just ruins it. If they left that part out and kept everything else it wouldn’t have been bad, especially not bad for a remake as many of them Truly suck.

  • Rock Baker

    In the sequel, the menace grew from a single chip off the original, so each piece would live but the question is would each have an individual mind, or would they attempt to re-link if given the chance?

  • Petoht

    Rock: I’m pretty sure it didn’t really think. I always figured it just sorta was. Kinda like a pool or mercury. If two pools get near each other they link up, but I don’t think it would seek out the other mass.

    I always viewed it as not so much an alien monster but as a force of (alien) nature. It didn’t kill people because it wanted to, or even because it wanted to grow, they were just in the way.

  • Rock Baker

    I never really got that. To me it seemed the Blob was hunting its victims. It certainly moved in a proactive manner to catch Dr. Halland and his nurse, and was chasing people deeper into the freezer and the diner until forced out by the cold. That it could react to the cold and retreat implies survival mentality, which implies a mind of some sort.

  • Petoht

    Well, it’s been 20-some years since I last saw it, so I’m really fuzzy on specifics.

    That being said, it might have a rudimentary mind, but I wouldn’t give it intelligence. But, I mean, it’s not your sentience that makes you pull your hand from a hot stove, it’s a reflex action. Which, I guess, means the Blob at least has some form of nervous system. But if the sequel was a chip of the Blob ravaging the countryside, then maybe it’s more akin to a bacterial colony than anything.

  • I don’t know, Rock, don’t even protozoa consume protozoa and react to stimuli? I wouldn’t think they have intelligence of any real sort. I always thought of the Blob like that. I’d actually compare it more to the Monolith Monsters.

  • Rock Baker

    Well, the Blob seems driven more by instinct than intelligence, but I’m convinced it was motivated by hunger and knew enough of what was going on around it to actively hunt some bodies down. It never passed up a meal, and it did chase some people rather than just roll around waiting for something to get too close.