Though he was pushing thirty
by the time he broke into movies, that didn’t stop Steve McQueen making his debut as the world’s
least convincing 17-year-old in this quintessential Fifties monster movie.
Starting as he clearly meant to go on, the film opens with a clearly
middle-aged McQueen (conveniently playing a character called Steve) enjoying
that classic post-war teenage pastime of necking in the woods with his
girlfriend, Jane. Their moonlight passion is interrupted by both Jane’s
prudish demeanour and the sudden arrival of a shooting star, which seems
to land nearby. Realising that hot space rock is the most exciting thing
on the menu for the evening, Steve drives off to find the crash site,
with Jane somewhat reluctantly in tow.
The meteorite has already been found though, by an old man who lives
in a shack in the woods. When prodded, the rock cracks open and out oozes
a gooey mass. The gloop quickly attaches itself to the old man’s
arm, and it’s as he staggers into the road in agony that his path
crosses with that of Steve and Jane.
They take him to the local doctor, who is understandably baffled. Before
he can solve the mystery, the blob has consumed the old man and turns
its attention to the doctor and his hapless nurse. Steve and Jane try
to warn the cops that something sticky is afoot, but being smalltown
police officers in a Fifties teen horror flick, the long arm of the law
is in no hurry to believe them.
The plucky duo opt to investigate by themselves and, after a close encounter
in a supermarket during which the blob retreats rather than follow them
into the freezer, the “kids” round up all their middle-aged
teen chums and set about waking up the town to warn them of the menace.
Luckily, as Steve tries to convince the assembled – and pissed
off - townsfolk and authorities, the blob bursts out of the local cinema.
Having
grown to enormous size, it traps Steve, Jane and her little brother
in the local diner, smothering the building with its undulating pink
form. The cops bring down the power lines on the malevolent mass, but
succeed only in setting fire to the diner. Of course, it’s not
entirely clear why the blob persists in trying to reach a handful of
people in a cellar while a veritable buffet of onlookers is waiting right
across the street, but nobody ever said that ravenous space jellies were
terribly clever.
It’s while trying to put out the fire that Steve stumbles on the
answer – the cold spray of the extinguisher makes the ooze recoil.
Soon the whole town is collecting fire extinguishers and squirting them
all over the blob. The menace duly frozen, the army drops it in the North
Pole where it can remain inert and harmless – “So long as
the Arctic stays cold”, quips Steve, cunningly predicting global
warming. The movie signs off with a stock shot of a crate being parachuted
into the snowy wastes. The words “The End” slither onto the
screen, before spookily reforming into an ominous question mark. Crikey.
Although it was one of the first sci-fi movies to be shot in Technicolor,
The Blob is an incredibly cheap movie. Pivotal scenes – such as
the diner catching fire and the army flying the blob to safety – aren’t
even shown, but are instead described by characters watching the action.
It’s also a rather uneventful movie, as the town is populated by
some of the smartest, most polite teen rabble rousers in movie history,
and a police department run by a kindly fellow known as Lt. Dave, who
is openly and enthusiastically on the side of the kids. Despite this,
the special effects for the blob itself are actually quite good – a
fun mixture of stop motion and reverse photography was used to make the
slimy ball of silicone move with surprising conviction.
As for Steve McQueen (credited here as Steven), he plays the whole
thing completely straight, his strict Method training resulting in
a performance
that is far too sincere and serious for a movie about killer slime.
Need to know: The Blob opens with a hilariously inappropriate
theme song, all jazzy trumpets and funky handclaps, written by none
other
than king
of swing, Burt Bacharach. It's certainly the only time a legendary
songwriter has penned an ode to the perils of flesh-eating jelly monsters...
A belated sequel, Beware!
The Blob, followed in 1972. This rather limp follow-up (released in
the UK as Son of the Blob) was directed by none
other than Dallas star, Larry Hagman. The Blob was also remade in 1988
by director Charles “Chuck” Russell (see: Patricia
Arquette).
The remake was surprisingly faithful to the original story, though the
special effects were a lot gorier, with the gruesome effects of the blob’s
acidic embrace lovingly portrayed in lurid detail. Another remake is
currently planned.
Availability: The Blob is available on a rather good special edition
DVD, with lots of fun bonus features.
