8 / 10
The Blob exists in two memorable versions. Irvin Yeaworth directed the 1958 original. Chuck Russell directed the 1988 remake.
Both films involve a gelatinous extraterrestrial that lands in a small American town, dissolves victims into its mass, and grows progressively larger. The 1958 version stars a twenty-eight-year-old Steve McQueen in his first leading role. The 1988 version stars Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith. Both films are well-regarded within the creature feature subgenre. The remake is more graphic. The original is more iconic. Both are worth watching.
The 1958 film made approximately four million dollars on a one hundred and ten thousand dollar budget and ranks among the most profitable independent films of its decade. The 1988 remake made approximately eight million dollars on a nineteen million dollar budget and was a commercial disappointment despite generally positive reviews. The remake’s failure ended Chuck Russell’s planned creature feature trilogy and contributed to the late-1980s decline of the practical-effects horror cycle.
I get a real charge out of both of these movies, for opposite reasons. The 1958 film is earnest, cheap and weirdly sweet, and the 1988 remake is gross in the best way. McQueen alone makes the original worth my time, even though he’s obviously nobody’s teenager. Neither climbs past an 8 for me, because the original’s teenagers are too old and the remake’s third act gets bogged down in its military conspiracy.
The 1958 Original
The original works because it commits to its small-town setting.
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania feels like a real place: the diner, the movie theater, the high school and the police station all belong to a town that exists. The teenagers are specific Phoenixville teenagers and the adults are specific small-town authority figures. I love that grounding, and I think it’s the reason a pile of jelly can scare anybody.
Steve McQueen’s performance is the second reason the film works. McQueen was twenty-eight playing a teenager and the age difference is visible. The compensation is McQueen’s specific intensity. That made him plausible as the only adult in a town full of teenagers despite being too old for the role. The film argues that the teenagers were right and the adults were wrong. That became one of the foundational plots of later monster movies. The Blob established a template that John Carpenter and others would adapt across the next several decades.
For Writers
A creature feature that grounds the alien in a specific real-world setting is more effective than one that treats the setting as backdrop. The Blob’s Phoenixville is real geography. The audience can follow it. The lesson is that supernatural or science fiction elements gain credibility from realistic surroundings. The more specific the everyday world, the more disruptive the unusual element feels when it arrives. Generic settings minimize the disruption.
The 1988 Remake
Chuck Russell’s remake is more graphic and more politically conscious than the original.
The blob in the remake is the result of secret government experimentation instead of extraterrestrial origin. The third act involves military containment and conspiracy. The practical effects are significantly more elaborate than the original could afford, with characters being partially dissolved in extended graphic sequences that the 1958 film couldn’t have shown.
The remake’s most-praised sequences are the kills. Each death is staged as a set piece with its own consequences. The pay phone death. The kitchen sink death. The movie theater death. The film doesn’t soften any of them. The audience watches characters die in real time. The R rating allowed Russell to commit to the body horror that the original could only suggest.
The kitchen sink death is the one that makes me squirm hardest, and I’d point anyone who thinks eighties practical effects were cheesy straight at it. Russell stages each kill like he’s daring me to look away, and I don’t.
For Writers
A remake that updates a property’s content to match contemporary standards can succeed if the update serves the underlying premise. The 1988 Blob’s graphic kills serve the creature’s threat in ways the 1958 film couldn’t. The lesson is that remakes should ask what the original couldn’t do that the new version can. If the answer is “more graphic violence,” that’s a valid creative direction. If the answer is “nothing,” the remake probably shouldn’t exist.
The Practical Effects
Both films are practical-effects achievements. The 1958 version used silicone-based jelly mixed with vegetable dye for the blob itself. The substance moved naturally and could absorb objects placed in its path. The 1988 version used multiple techniques including miniatures, full-scale puppet rigs, and air bladders for the dissolution effects. Lyle Conway designed the creature effects for the remake.
Neither version uses computer-generated effects in significant ways.
The 1958 film couldn’t have. The 1988 film could have but chose not to, partly for budget reasons and partly because the practical work was producing better results. The remake is one of the high-water marks of late-1980s practical horror effects, alongside John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and The Fly (1986).
I’d take the remake’s puppets and air bladders over a computer-generated blob any day. The dissolving bodies have a weight and texture I can almost smell, and that tactile nastiness is why the remake gets the same 8 as the original.
For Writers
Practical effects from the 1980s often look better than CGI from the 2010s because the practical work was photographed instead of rendered. The audience can tell the difference even when they can’t articulate it. The lesson is that effects techniques have aging curves. Practical work ages gradually as standards shift. CGI ages quickly because each generation invalidates the previous. If your work depends on visual effects, consider which technique will look acceptable in twenty years instead of which looks best now.
Craft Note
The 1958 practical Blob effects are the film’s central craft. The silicone gel sculpting and the projection-screen incorporation produced an effect that suggested gradual absorption instead of overt menace. Low-budget horror works through suggestion: the audience supplies the threat their imagination is willing to imagine. That’s usually more frightening than what the budget could have shown.
Is The Blob (1958 and 1988) worth watching?
8/10 average, and 8 for each. I give the original credit for McQueen, Phoenixville and a jelly monster that works through suggestion, and the remake credit for kills that make me wince and effects that still hold up. Neither goes higher because the original’s grown-up teenagers strain belief and the remake’s government-conspiracy turn is less fun than its monster. Watch the original for the foundation and the remake for the effects work.
