The Blob (1958 franchise)
Summary
The Blob (1958), its sequel Beware! The Blob (1972, AKA Son of the Blob, Son of Blob, A Chip off the Old Blob), and at least one remake.
"It crawls.... It creeps.... It eats you alive!" An alien lifeform consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows. In the original film, the blob is released from a meteorite and wreaks havoc across a small town, terrorizing movie-going teens before being frozen and carried off to the North Pole; in the sequel, a technician brings a frozen specimen of the original Blob back from the North Pole, and his wife accidentally defrosts the thing, unleashing its terror on the populace, including the local hippies, kittens, and bowlers.
Details
- Release Date: 1958 (original), 1972 (sequel), 1988 (remake), another remake by Rob Zombie rumored to be in development
- Country/Language: USA, English
- Genres/Technical: Sci-fi, Horror; the 1972 sequel is a horror-comedy
- Setting: 1950s
- Runtime: 1 hr 26 min
- Starring: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe (1958); Robert Walker Jr., Gwynne Gilford, Richard Stahl (1972); Shawnee Smith, Kevin Dillon, Donovan Leitch Jr. (1988)
- Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., Russell S. Doughten Jr. (uncredited); Larry Hagman (1972); Chuck Russell (1988), Rob Zombie (indev)
- Writer: Irvine H. Millgate (original idea), Theodore Simonson (screenplay) and Kay Linaker (screenplay, as Kate Phillips) (1958); Jack Woods (screenplay), Anthony Harris (screenplay), Jack H. Harris (1972);
- Producer/Production Co: Jack H. Harris and Anthony Harris, (original and sequel), Tonylyn Productions Inc., Valley Forge Films, Fairview Productions (1958); Jack H. Harris Enterprises (1972); TriStar Pictures, Palisades California Inc. (1988)
- View Trailer: (1958), (1972), (1988)
- TVTropes: (1958), (1972), (1988)
- Wikipedia: (1958), (1972), (1988)
- IMDB Page: (link), (link), (link), (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: original and sequel not rated (equivalent to PG for Violence; sequel also contains some profanity and brief nudity); remake rated R (graphic Violence, mild Adult Content and Profanity)
The original film is (aside from the creepy monster) probably going to be relatively kid-friendly; the 1970 sequel includes a kitten among the blob's victims, which sensitive viewers may find upsetting; the 1988 remake dials the body horror up to levels that all but the least sensitive kids (or at least their parents) may find disturbing.
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- SS___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; vaguely similar in tone, could be a very loose adaptation)
A bizarre flesh-eating Shoggoth-like monster from outer space in a film that has a few slight similarities to "The Colour Out of Space (fiction" suggest at least a vague similarity to Lovecraftian horror.
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- (review needed)
Synopsis (SPOILERS)
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
An alien lifeform consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows. In the original film, the blob is released from a meteorite and wreaks havoc across a small town, terrorizing movie-going teens before being frozen and carried off to the North Pole; in the sequel, a technician brings a frozen specimen of the original Blob back from the North Pole, and his wife accidentally defrosts the thing, unleashing its terror on the populace, including the local hippies, kittens, and bowlers.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
- 27-year-old Steve McQueen played the part of a teen-aged high-school student in the original.
- The original Blob is blue when it first emerges from the meteorite, then translucent; it only turns red when it has begun eating people and drinking their blood, and some taglines refer to the blob being bloated on human blood.
- The horror film playing in the theater in the original movie is Dementia (1955). The movie poster just outside the theater of "The Vampire and The Robot" is actually for The Forbidden Planet (1956 film), with different titles pasted over the original info.
- The original film's producer Jack Harris originally named the movie "The Glob", and referred to the creature in development as "The Mass"; he hoped "The Glob" sounded silly enough to be picked up as a punchline by comedians across the country, giving his movie free publicity, but soon found "The Glob" was taken already by a popular cartoon of the era; Harris settled on "The Blob" instead.
- According to producer Jack H. Harris, there were at least two proposed television series to be based on the original film, but none had made it to the pilot stage; it's unclear how the television series would have worked, and Harris jokingly suggested that the blob become a crime-fighter. A sequel Curse of the Blob was planned for the 1972 film, but abandoned.
Associated Mythos Elements
- film - see also:
- fiction: compare loosely to "The Colour Out of Space (fiction"
- race: Shoggoth or Colour Out of Space
Keeper Notes
- The investigators are the only ones who can stop a horrible, flesh-eating Lovecraftian monster from terrorizing a small town.
