| | | | The Blob
(1988) |
eriously, what could be sillier than a movie about a big, gelatinous blob of pink goo that fell out of the sky in a meteor, and now goes around engulfing people like an overgrown amoeba? The fact that this 1988 remake of the 60s sci-fi/horror classic manages to make something so ludicrous seem almost frightening, makes it a successful film in my book.
In a smallish American town, where everyone knows everyone else, cheerleader Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith) has gotten a date with high school football star Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch). However, their romantic evening is interrupted by the local drape Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon), a long-haired, motorcycle-riding orphan, who runs out in front of their car leading a homeless guy (Billy Beck). They notice that he has a strange, white, glutinous mass attached to his hand, and they rush him to the hospital.
At the hospital, the old man is put into a room to wait while the doctor finishes with another patient. By the time the doctor finally sees him, he looks like a burnt cheese pizza from the waist down, and the blob is nowhere to be found. When Paul goes to call the sheriff, he fails to notice the great, pulsating reddish mass hovering over his head - and within seconds, he's blob food.
Nobody believes Meg's story about a killer blob, though, and soon the cops have arrested Brian Flagg - he must have been jealous of Paul, after all, doesn't every motorcycle punk secretly want to be a football star?
The blob, increasing in size every time it digests a person, soon grows to the size of a Volkswagen bus, pulling people down drains, engulfing phone booths, and generally wreaking havoc on the town. Sleazy Scott Jeske (Ricky Paull Goldin), Paul Taylor's football buddy, is in the process of "scoring" with blonde bimbo Vickie De Soto (Erika Eleniak), when suddenly her face implodes and tentacles reach out of her bra and wrap around Scott, turning him into a meal for our amoeboid antagonist.
The plot, much like the blob, thickens when our odd-couple heroes, Meg and Brian, encounter Dr. Meddows and a whole team of men in haz-mat suits with little flourescent lights inside of them. Meddows, seemingly a good-natured old man, tells the kids that he's with a microbiological research team, and the city's under quarantine. However, Brian does some snooping to discover that the blob is actually a Cold War biological warfare device, sent into space by the U.S. government! The "meteor" that contained the blob was no more than a satellite, crudely disguised as a rock, and the "quarantine" imposed by Dr. Meddows is for the safety of his precious creation, not the safety of the people.
Meanwhile, Meg rescues her little brother Kevin (Michael Kenworthy) and his mischevious friend Eddie (Douglas Emerson) from the movie theater, where the now-enormous blob has rudely interrupted the showing of "Garden Tool Massacre" by oozing out through the screen and plopping onto the audience in a gooey feeding frenzy. Meg and the boys descend into the sewer, narrowly escaping the blob, and run around through the muck, Meg's white t-shirt now quite transparent.
Anyway, after a lot of explosions, the kids (minus Eddie, who was eaten) escape from the sewer, to the dismay of Dr. Meddows. However, Meddows himself is soon consumed by his creation, and the rest of the scientists start firing weapons into the sewer, and even throw a big explosive device down to kill the blob once and for all.
Big mistake. Like the "big loogie" in Ivan Reitman's "Evolution", the blob isn't destroyed by fire - in fact, it needs heat to live, and grows to the size of a small building. As the ever-articulate Kevin Dillon put it, "I think you pissed it off." It shoots up out of the sewer like a great, fleshy tower, and comes crashing down on the crew of scientists. It then begins bubbling towards the town hall, where the city's population huddles in fear, slurping up everyone in its path, and wraps itself around the building, sending in tentacles to scout for edible humans. It seems all is lost, until Meg Penny remembers that she and Brian were safe from the blob when they were in a meat freezer.
She grabs a fire extinguisher and begins spraying at the tentacles, which recoil with cries of pain (where does the blob keep its vocal cords, one wonders?). Meanwhile, Brian drives up with a fake snow machine, preparing to blast the blob, but somehow gets flipped over. Meg rushes out, steals a big firearm and an explosive device from a partially-digested guy in a haz-mat suit - who croaks "help me" as she pulls the device from his liquified shoulder - and plants the bomb on a take of liquid nitrogen, using the gun to distract the blob. When the bomb goes off, it starts to "snow", and the blob is instantly turned into a field of beautiful pink crystals.
However, the world isn't safe - the Reverend (Del Close), who considered the blob attack "the day of reckoning", managed to save some blob crystals from the blob's earlier encounter with the meat freezer. After his fire-and-brimstone sermon in a crude tent on the outskirts of town, a woman asks him when the "day of reckoning" will occur. Pulling out a jar that contains an adorable pink "bloblet", he mutters, "Soon, madame. The lord will give me a sign."
Chilling...
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A wonderful marriage of classic, campy horror and modern special effects.
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Del Close, who plays Reverend Meeker was also in the 1972 sequel to the original "The Blob", called "Beware The Blob". Close was also an accomplished comic book writer, having penned the award winning DC Comic, "Wasteland". Probably most notably, Close founded the Second City comedy troupe and discovered many actors/comedians including: John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Betty Thomas, George Wendt, and John Candy. In his will he bequeathed his own skull to the Goodman Theatre, to be used in their productions of Hamlet, with him getting a credit in the program.  -Thanks to Ron
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The 1988 remake of "The Blob" was shot partially in the small South Louisiana town of Abbeville (population roughly 12,000), located around fifty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. In the film, the city is called "Arborville," and the location is either Colorado or Northern California. In "The Blob," the city of Arborville is a small ski resort town that relies on heavily on tourism to keep itself in the black. In the movie, the residents and shopkeepers are nearing panic waiting for the year's first snow, and signs that read "THINK SNOW" dot the city streets. After the crew wrapped up filming in Louisiana, Abbeville received it's first snow in nearly twenty years. -Thanks to Hank
Snub-nosed actor Kevin Dillon (Brian Flagg) is the brother of gay icon Matt Dillon, and had a semi-regular role on "NYPD Blue".
Joe Seneca (Dr. Meddows) once sang with a group called The Three Riffs, and wrote songs such as "Talk to Me", sung by Little Willie John. He died in 1996 of coronary arrest.
Joe Seneca can also be seen in Walter Hills "Crossroads" (1986) in a leading role as a bluesharmonica player. -Thanks to Peter Baldinger
Donovan Leitch, Jr. (Paul Taylor) is the son of pop singer Donovan Leitch, and was once married to Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs.
Candace "Candy" Clark (Fran) was nominated for an Oscar for her role in American Graffiti, and was once the live-in girlfriend of Jeff Bridges.
Pons Maar (of Return to Oz and The American Scream) has a small role in The Blob - he plays the grouchy manager of the movie theater.
The butthead deputy sherrif "Bill Briggs" is played by the same actor who plays "Dr. Robert Romano" in the TV show "ER", Paul McCrane. -Thanks to Jason B
Actor Jamison Newlander, who had a cameo as a cinema usher can also be seen as one of the 'Frog Brothers', the over-confident young vampire killers from the movie "The Lost Boys". (The other Frog Brother was, of course, actor Corey Feldman). -Thanks to Adam
Director Chuck Russell was the man responsible for putting the "comedy" in Freddy Krueger for 1987's "A Nightmare On Elm St. 3 -The Dream Warriors". He also Made 1994's "The Mask" more comedic. The original script was very violent. -Thanks to Terry Watkins
Douglass Emerson went on later to appear in Beverly Hills 90210. He is Brian Austin Green who accidently shoots himself with a gun. -Thanks to Tony Goytia
Kevin Dillon also plays Johnny "Drama" Chase on the HBO show "Entourage". -Thanks to George Rontiris
Shawnee Smith can also be seen as the ditzy 'Linda' in the Emmy award-winning comedy sitcom 'Becker'. She also appears alongside John Candy in the film "Who's Harry Crumb?". -Thanks to Phantom Planet
Paul McCrane, who played the Deputy, was also the robber at the gas station in the "Robocop" movie. -Thanks to &Quot;BEL&Quot;
Kevin Dillon, also part of Charlie Sheen's platoon in the film of the same name, rides two 60's Triumph motorcycles in the film. A 500cc twin cylinder Tiger which turns into a 200cc single cylinder Tiger Cub for the stunt jump at the end. The irony is, 50's 'Blob' star, Steve Mcqueen's favorite bike make was Triumph too. -Thanks to Erum
Meg's little brother, who is played by Michael Kenworthy, is also the little brother on Return of the Living Dead II. -Thanks to Tara
This remake was filmed in Abbeville, Louisiana (near Lafayette, LA) which, every November, gets together to keep a tradition of making an omelette big enough to feed the entire town. They use thousands of eggs and hundreds of pounds of other ingredients. So, you could say that they make a huge blob there every year. -Thanks to Jim Mitchell
Actor Ricky Paull Goldin who played Scott Jeske went on to be a very popular Daytime soap opera star appearing as a regular for three different stints on "Another World" in the 1990's, he joined the cast of Daytime's "Guiding Light" in April 2001. Douglas Emerson who played Kevin's friend, Eddie, was an original cast member of "Beverly Hills 90210", he played Scott Scanlon for one season. Erika Eleniak who played Vicki DeSoto, became a Playboy Playmate in 1989, she would later go on to do a few seasons of "Baywatch" and play Ellie May in the 1993 "Beverly Hillbillies" Movie. Michael Kenworthy who played Kevin Penny, Meg's Little Brother, also starred in "Return Of The Living Dead Part II" released the same year. -Thanks to Terry Watkins
Shawnee Smith went on to feature in Stephen King's "The Stand" and as Amanda in the "Saw" series. -Thanks to Grobe23
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The blob itself was made of Methacyl, a food thickener, that is extremely slippery and wet - people on the set of The Blob were constantly falling down.
For the famous scene where Paul gets eaten by the Blob, Donovan Leitch had to have a whole body cast made of himself because it would've taken to long to have him underneath it. Chuck Russell did not tell Shawnee Smith it wasn't really Donovan Leitch underneath the blob until filming on that scene began so he could get a true look of terror out of her. There were about 50 people running the animatronic man, but the blob covered the wires so Russell was easily able to conceal them until a few takes were done. -Thanks to Sundance7490
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|  |  |  | | The Blob
Locations |
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 Featured Movie Location: The High School
Wanna see the real life filming location used for The High School in the movie? These scenes were actually shot at Vermilion Catholic High School, located in Abbeville, Louisiana. [New! Show Google Map]
Much of this movie was shotin Chester County, PA. The diner is located in Downingtown, PA and the movie theatre and school is in Phoenixville, PA. [Thanks to John Sly]
Can you help? Do you know any of the Louisiana (or any other) filming locations used for The Blob? [Please send them in]
|  | | | | ![[16:9 -Widescreen Enhanced]](16_9.gif) | ![[STEREO or SURROUND]](dd2.gif) | Trailer |
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Comments: Sep 11, 2001 |
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The soundtrack was released on Filmtrax Records on CD and cassette. [Thanks to Chad Wichterman]
It is debatable if the soundtrack to this movie ever had an official release. There was a CD released in the late 80's that professed to being the soundtrack, with a score by Michael Hoenig (Tangerine Dream). The other songs in the movie were by swedish band Alien (end credits "Brave New Love") from their self-titled debut, Mike Slamer "Shattered" and a band called Hot Rize.
The song at the end of the movie is "Brave New Love" by Alien and can only be found on rare old, hard-to-find Vinyl LP records.
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Soundtrack Available:
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