The Blob
(1988)
(Guest review by Bill Hiers!)
The Characters:
The Story:
Arborville, Colorado is your average American small town. It's a ski resort, but recent winters have been decidedly short on the show which is severely crimping the town's style. Not that this affects Arborville's teenagers much. Brian Flagg is a nice guy, but his long hair, preferance for leather jackets and ripped jeans, and his tendency to smoke have earned him a reputation around town as something of a lowlife. The local cops like to hassle him, especially Grade-A dickweed Deputy Briggs (although Sheriff Geller is a little more tolerant of him), and his only real friend in the world is Moss, the local garage owner, whom he apparently works for. Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that this year's winter isn't terribly, well, winter-y, Moss is working on a snowmaker. Then there's Meg Penny. The homecoming queen and a cheerleader for the Wildcats, the high school football team. Contrary to what you might think, she's not vapid and bubbleheaded. Quite the opposite. She's fairly intelligent and compassionate, as is her boyfriend, Paul Taylor, who happens to be a quarterback for the Wildcats.
Okay, so far so good. We've got one motorcycle hood who actually isn't a bad guy, one cheerleader who actually has some smarts, and a football player who actually isn't a dumb jock. But of course, since this is a movie entitled The Blob, this means that pretty soon Arborville is going to be in big trouble, and Brian, Meg and Paul are all about to have their relatively peaceful and mundane lives rudely interrupted.
Sure enough, one night a big meteor crashes out in the woods. The only person around to witness this is an elderly homeless guy known around town as the Can Man because he collects empty drink cans. Anyone who's seen the original movie knows that curious old men and fallen rocks from outer space don't mix, and won't be surprised when the old fella goes and pokes the thing with a stick and has its decidedly sticky purple contents latch onto and begin consuming his hand.
He's found by Brian, who is out in the woods by himself (he tends to prefer to keep to himself you see), but Brian's efforts to assist him come to naught and the crazed old coot runs out into the middle of the road and is promptly slammed into by Meg and Paul who are out on a date. Paul immediately jumps to the conclusion Brian chased the man into the road, and Brian, eager to prove his innocence, agrees to accompany him and Meg to the local doctor to get the hurt Can Man some help. Once they arrive, though, the night nurse's callousness disgusts Brian and he leaves. Paul and Meg remain to fill out paperwork. The doctor is with another patient and cannot immediately get to the Can Man, which ends up spelling trouble for all concerned. Paul, going to get a soda, notices that the old man has passed away and fetches the doctor, and when they pull back the sheet the body is covered with they discover that the poor bastard has been completely eaten away below the chest!
Now, either the Can Man had the worst case of acid indigestion in medical history, or the stuff on his hand did this. Paul figures it's the latter and runs to the doctor's office to call Sheriff Geller. However the blob has grown considerably larger since eating most of the Can Man, and it has also apparently developed Ninja skills because it manages to sneak up on Paul and get the drop on him. Literally. Meg hears his screams and comes running in time to witness him getting eaten alive by the purple monstrosity, which then escapes out the window.
We're left to wonder why the blob did not eat her as well, and why the doctor and nurse did not come running in response to all the screaming she and Paul were doing. Regardless, by the time Sheriff Geller and Deputy Briggs get to the clinic the blob is gone and all that's left is the half-eaten Can Man and Paul's severed arm. For whatever reason Briggs has got it in his head that Brian is responsible and so he arrests him, but Geller, realizing there is neither evidence nor motive, makes Briggs cut him loose and then decides to call in the state police to assist in searching for the missing Paul.
Meanwhile the blob eats a couple of horny teenagers (Paul's friend Scott, and Scott's girlfriend Vickie, who were introduced earlier), and then goes into the town's sewer system. Now, obviously, no one believes Meg about what she saw. Not her parents, or the police. But she figures that since Brian saw the stuff on the old guy's hand, he'll believe her, so after he leaves the sheriff station she follows him to the Pie Pan Cafe where she tries to convince him that she did in fact see her boyfriend get eaten alive by a giant purple ball of crud. At first, Brian doesn't believe her.
But that's before the blob puts in an appearance at the scene, apparently having heard about how good the grub at the Pie Pan is. It sucks George the cook down the drain, an act witnessed by Brian, Meg and Fran the waitress. Brian and Meg hide in the diner's walk-in freezer, where the blob doesn't seem willing to go, as it seems to dislike the cold. Fran isn't so lucky. She manages to make it outside and gets into a phonebooth to call the Sheriff, only to be told Sheriff Geller has, in fact, gone down to the Pie Pan. Cue the blob to envelope the booth, whereupon we see Geller inside it, having gotten gobbled up offscreen. Exit Fran.
When it's safe, Brian and Meg come out of hiding and return to the sheriff's station, not knowing that Geller is blob kibble. After they've left, local preacher Reverend Meeker happens by the Pie Pan and witnesses the blob going back into the sewer. When he goes into the diner to see if anyone needs help, he finds only a stray cat, as well as some of the frozen bits of blob in the open freezer. For some reason, he feels compelled to scoop them all up into a little jar he finds. Uh-oh.
When no one at the station can reach Geller (I wonder why) they opt to go looking for Deputy Briggs who is still out scouring the woods with the state police looking for Paul. So far, except for the boyfriend getting eaten, the movie has followed the plot of the original film very closely, but it's about to take a sudden turn into a completely different story. For the U.S. Army descends upon Arborville and initiates a quarantine. Leading them is the seemingly friendly but ultimately creepy Dr. Meddows, and his right-hand man Colonel Hargis. They claim that they're there because they're worried the meteor which crashed in the woods might have brought a space-borne plague with it, and this explanation is good enough for Meg. But Brian is suspicious, especially when neither Meddows or Hargis seem terribly floored by the revelation that it's the biggest germ in history they're dealing with, despite believing them. Meg returns to town without Brian who opts to spy on the Army, and discovers that the soldiers are going by sector and getting all of the townspeople to the meeting hall for safekeeping. Her parents are there, but her little brother Kevin is at the movie theater with his friend Eddie, and the soldiers haven't gotten there yet.
Sure enough, the blob attacks the movie theater, Ninja-style once again. Kevin and Eddie have snuck into an R-rated movie with the aid of Eddie's older brother Anthony, who works as an usher. The movie is Garden Tool Massacre, a thinly-veiled riff on the Friday the 13th movies. The blob eats the projectionist, and the usher who comes to check on him; the unfortunate projectionist is found stuck to the ceiling in the mass of blob and the look on the usher's face is priceless. The blob then flows out through the projectionist's window and into the audience (the first audience member to be gobbled up is, hilariously, the loudmouth who wouldn't shut up while the movie was playing and was annoying everyone. Meg runs in and rescues both Kevin and Eddie, and the three have to escape from the blob by going into the sewer. This is witnessed by Anthony, who hurriedly runs and informs the troops responding to all the ruckus that his little brother and some other people have been pursued into the sewer by the monster.
Word of this reaches Meddows and Hargis at their base camp in the woods, near where the meteor landed. And it is here that we learn the awful truth about the supposedly friendly Dr. Meddows. He isn't interested in killing the blob. He and Colonel Hargis want to capture it alive to use as a biological weapon, and now that they know it's in the sewer they figure this is their best opportunity to trap it. They just have to seal off all the aqueducts and such. When Hargis inquires about "the civilians" who are stuck down there (i.e., Meg, Kevin and Eddie), Meddows just says they're expendable and can die; in fact he's prepared to sacrifice the lives of everyone in Arborville if it means catching the monster.
Brian happens to be spying on them at this point so now he knows the truth, but he's spotted by some soldiers and has to make a hasty getaway through the woods in a brief but (in my opinion) fairly exciting chase sequence in which he jumps a shallow ravine with his motorcycle. Finding his way to where a drain pipe is emptying into the river, Brian goes into the sewer, both to elude the pursuing soldiers and also to look for Meg and the kids.
Speaking of whom, we cut to them traversing the sewers, wading through waist-deep water, whereupon they realize the blob is in the water with them! Meg herds the two boys over to a pipe on the wall leading up to a convenient grate. Kevin climbs up first; Eddie is about to go second when suddenly the underwater menace grabs him and drags him under. Why the blob would grab him rather the (comparatively) larger meal that is Meg is anybody's guess. Anyway, poor little Eddie is horrifically dissolved and melts away before Meg's eyes. So far this girl has seen at least four people get eaten right in front of her; she's going to need therapy. That, and she's going to have some explaining to do when Anthony asks what happened to his little brother.
Kevin calls for her to climb up, but, alas, she can't fit through the grate! Just as the blob, now rising out of the water, is about to gobble her up, too, a bunch of Meddows' soldiers happen by. One of them shoots at the blob (despite Meddows' orders to take it alive); this attracts the attention of the blob who eats one soldier and chases the other two off down the tunnels, allowing Meg to climb down and find another escape route, whilst Kevin makes it to street level and is reunited with his parents.
Said escape route takes her right to Brian. How convenient. Their reunion is rudely interrupted by the reappearance of the blob (this thing just won't quit!), and Brian gets them out of there by driving his motorbike so fast that he goes along the side of the tunnel wall, effectively passing over the blob. This results in him wiping out, though, and although initially he's upset about his bike being wrecked, Meg persuades him to leave it behind. They resume trying to find a way out of the sewers, in the process running into one of those two soldiers last seen being chased off by the blob. The poor guy is traumatized from watching both of his buddies get eaten, but he's lucid enough to lead Brian and Meg to a nearby manhole. Unfortunately waiting at the top is....dun, dun, DUN! Dr. Meddows. They're sealing the sewers off as per their plan to trap the blob, and the minute he sees Brian, he orders the manhole cover welded shut and even has a van parked on top of it for good measure, completely not giving crap that one of his own guys is down there too!
It looks like our two leads are doomed. They can hear the blob coming for them, and just as they're resigning themselves to their fates Brian notices that their soldier companion has a small rocket launcher. Using this, he blows the manhole cover off...as well as the aforementioned van sitting on top of it, allowing himself, Meg and the soldier (who like Meg is gonna need therapy) to climb up, to the surprise and anger of Meddows. He orders Colonel Hargis to shoot Brian. Brian, for his part, grabs a gun and points it at the evil scientist. Hargis hesitates, and then Deputy Briggs arrives on the scene and pulls his gun, too!
A Mexican standoff ensues as the townspeople all start to congregate, wondering what's going on, and Brian uses their presence to expose Meddows' true intentions, and how he's willing to sacrifice all of Arborville to capture the blob! Speaking of which, it's creeping up out of the manhole now, only no one notices it just yet. Surprisingly, Briggs believes Brian's story, whilst Hargis continues to seem unwilling to shoot the kid. Severely pissed off, Meddows grabs Hargis' gun and is about to do it himself when suddenly the blob attacks!
Lashing out with a tentacle it seizes Meddows and drags him into the sewer. In the process the assault rifle goes off, hitting poor Briggs (and just when he'd turned good, too). While not as gruesome as some of the other deaths in the film, Meddows' demise is still fittingly drawn out. He hangs on, half in the sewer and half out, and screams as the purple nastiness gets inside his suit and we get to watch the blob slowly filling up his hazmat suit's helmet, devouring him inside the suit. He's then dragged down into the sewer completely, and thus exits the movie's human villain. Now firmly on the side of good, Colonel Hargis turns his attention to killing the blob instead of capturing it, and drops a buttload of explosives down the manhole. One underground explosion later, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
But, suddenly, the ground begins to quake. Brian tells the Colonel, "I think....you've pissed it off." Sure enough, the entire street soon erupts as the whole gigantic mass of blob emerges in all its glory. Everyone stampedes for the perceived safety of the town hall. Everyone except Hargis, who, in a noble but ultimately vain attempt at self-sacrifice, allows the blob to consume him....after he's pulled the pins on two hand grenades. Sadly, the internal explosions do little to dissuade the amorphous alien from slithering after the fleeing townsfolk, grabbing them up one by one with its tentacles and munching them down.
Reverend Meeker reappears, ranting about the end of the world or something. A soldier with a flamethrower tries to toast the beast, but when he gets killed he accidentally toasts Meeker! Meg manages to put out the fire, and then she and Briggs (who survived being shot) help the badly injured preacher to the town hall where everyone bars the doors, Meg keeping the beast at bay with a fire extinguisher, since, of course, the blob hates cold. Other townsfolk join in, but there aren't enough extinguishers to hold the monster off for long, and the blob begins enveloping the entire building.
Briggs is seized through the barricade and pulled out to a gooey death. It should be mentioned, though, that, like George the cook earlier, the opening through which the blob sucks Briggs is too small to fit through, so the unfortunate deputy's body is bent and twisted in ways the human body wasn't meant to be in order for the monster to get him through. It's at this point that Meg realizes there's no sign of Brian anywhere. Did he get eaten during the blob's rampage outside?
Heck, no! He ran to Moss' garage to get that snowmaker from the beginning of the movie! It's basicaly a big tanker truck loaded with liquid nitrogen. Driving it to city hall, he deliberately crashes it into the blob, apparently in an attempt to rupture the tank and douse the monster in the nitrogen. This fails spectacularly and only succeeds in overturning the vehicle. The tank portion comes off and rolls off down the street; Brian remains trapped in the cab of the truck, caught on his seatbelt, as the blob oozes over and starts trying to get in at him. By the time Meg gets outside to see what's going on, the blob is completely covering the truck, although it hasn't busted into the cab yet; thank God Brian had the windows rolled up! Realizing what Brian's plan had been, Meg opts to finish what he started, only she's gonna have to improvise, big time. Grabbing both an assault rifle and a pack of explosives off a dying soldier, she runs over and gets on top of the nitrogen tank, yelling for the blob to come and get her and using a few bursts of gunfire to get its attention. This works in spades; the blob abandons the truck, allowing Brian to get out.
As the creature closes the distance between itself and Meg, Meg attachs the explosives to the side of the nitrogen tank and attempts to get off, only to get her pants leg caught on, er, something, preventing her from escaping. Luckily Brian comes running and frees her, just as the blob starts covering the tank. They run for it, and the bomb goes off with a huge kaboom. The end result is a huge pile of frozen, crystallized blob. Meg's dad emerges at this point and at first doesn't think that his daughter has survived the blast, but finds her and Brian nearby, a bit icey but none the worse for wear. Meg hugs her dad happily as the rest of the townsfolk emerge to find it "snowing" (it's just ice flakes created by the exploded liquid nitrogen though), and talk turns to what they're going to do with the blob. Moss says they should get a bunch of shovels and a dump truck and get the creature into a big freezer (like, say, the one at the Pie Pan Cafe) before it thaws.
We fade to sometime later. Reverend Meeker, recovered from his burns but horribly scarred, is giving a sermon about the apocalypse to some rapt churchgoers. He talks about how judgement day is coming, and that when it arrives, only the just will be saved. Finished, he retires to his office and steadies his nerves with some whiskey (he seems to be suffering from some severe mental problems as a result of his experience, as we'll see here in a second). An old woman from his congregation follows him back to his office and asks Meeker when judgement day will come. Meeker replies that "soon, the Lord will give me a sign," and holds up a jar containing a tiny bit of blob wriggling around. He's mad! Mad, I tell you!
I didn't see the original Blob until very recently. This is a rare instance of me consciously seeking out the remake first, and I gotta say, this movie impressed the hell outta me. Apart from the Evil Military Guys and one or two other characters, it doesn't feel terribly contrived to me, and the special effects are hella awesome. This movie also wins my vote for Creepiest Opening Credits Sequence, as the credits are shown over the seemingly desserted town with no living soul in sight. Of course, afterwards it's revealed they're all attending a football game, but the desolation is a nice bit of forshadowing to say the least. Perhaps the thing I liked the most was the relationship between Meg and Brian. That being, they don't really have one. Since the majority of the movie takes place over the course of a single night, it would've been odd if Meg got over her boyfriend's gruesome death so quickly and immediately fell in love with Brian, but thankfully she doesn't. As far as I can tell, she and Brian just become friends, simply two people brought together by a horrible disaster and nothing more. I liked this angle.
Written in June 2007 by Bill Hiers and used with his permission.
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Meg Penny - Cheerleader for the high school football team.
Brian Flagg - The local rebel without a cause/motorcycle hood with a heart of gold.
Paul Taylor - Meg's clean-cut, good-hearted football player boyfriend. Winds up blob chow.
Kevin Penny - Meg's little brother.
Sheriff Herb Geller - Jeffrey DeMunn! The law in Arborville. Blob chow.
Deputy Bill Briggs - Paul McCrane! Geller's hotheaded deputy. Blob chow.
Rev. Meeker - Del Close! The local preacher who thinks the blob's attack is a prophesized catastrophe.
Eddie Beckner - Kevin's best friend, who, surprisingly, is eaten by the blob.
Scott Jesky & Vickie DeSoto - Paul's perpetually horny best friend and his girlfriend. Both are blob chow.
Fran Hewitt & George Ruiz - The waitress and cook at the diner. Yup, they both get eaten; George is pulled down the sink.
Dr. Meddows - Joe Seneca! Evil Guv'ment scientist who wants to catch and study the blob. Eaten.
Colonel Hargis - Meddows' main flunkey, who is totally for the whole "sacrifice the innocent civilians to catch the blob" scheme. Squished by the blob.
Moss Woodley - Beau Billingslea! Local mechanic and the closest thing Brian has to a friend.
Can Man - Weird old hermit who becomes the first victim.
Theater manager, Phil the projectionist & various townspeople, scientists & soldiers - A balanced part of the blob's diet.
The Blob - The star of the show, a giant flesh-eating purple booger from outer space. Flash-frozen by Meg and Brian.
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Brian Flagg, rebel.
Why is it always some old homeless guy who dies first?
Finding the old man.
The doctor, who will vanish without a trace soon. Where does he go? Nobody knows.
Paul gets eaten.
Meg Penny, who is quite the screamer.
George gets pulled down the sink.
Looks like Arborville is going to have to elect a new sheriff.
Dr. Meddows (front and center) and friends.
Oh poopie.
The blob loves theater food!
Brian jumps the ravine. (Note the unlucky army truck that couldn't stop in time.)
Meg and the kids in the sewer.
Eddie gets eaten.
Brian, Meg and the poor, nameless soldier are trapped. Or are they?
Facing Dr. Meddows.
The evil Dr. Meddows gets a mouthful of blob.
The blob engulfs the town hall.
The blob trying to engulf Brian's crashed truck.
Meg goes all Ellen Ripley on the beastie.
Frozen blob.
Blatant sequel setup.