The Blob (1988)
Review by Peter Syslo

THE BLOB (1988) is a remake of the original, classic 1958 movie, of the same title. The 1988 version came out at a time where remakes were just an occasional thing – the remake bandwagon did not pick up speed until the late 1990s; up until this point, the most notable remake was John Carpenter’s THE THING. As always, sometimes the remake is successful and sometimes it is not – in this case, I think that THE BLOB (1988) falls more on the unsuccessful end of the scale (at least, compared to the original). The reason I feel that way is that I watched it for the first time, in years, and it did not age very well – it seemed a lot better when I was a young teenager. I do like the movie, to a point, but I feel that the original is still better.

THE BLOB (1988) is co-written (there were a few writers, apparently) and directed by Chuck Russell. The film stars a pre-SAW Shawnee Smith, a pre-Entourage Kevin Dillon, and recognizable faces like Art La Fleur and, in a bit part, Bill Moseley.

The story is basically the same as in the original: A meteorite crashes to earth, and a gelatinous creature crawls out of it and starts devouring everything in its path, growing to an enormous size. The film focuses on a small group of people, who try to escape and try to stop the blob, at the same time.

The movie seemed great, when I was younger, but it just didn’t do it for me, this time around. One of the main reasons for this was that the blob special effects were not that great. This was at a time, before CGI and they were still using matte effects and still using motion/models to accomplish things. In some of the older films, these types of effects do look really good and they work, but at other times, the matte effects don’t fit in with overall film and they tend to look “fake”. This was the case in this movie, and although the blob had an ominous presence, it was not really scary.

Another reason that I feel that the movie did not age well, was the overall story – It flowed fairly well, in the beginning, but towards the end, it almost became a group of “blob scenes” pieced together. However, there are some scenes that I really do like: they had an “homage” to the original, with the blob in the movie theater; they did make the blob more deadly, like it had an acidic quality to it which “melted” its victims; and the final scene is just classic, tragic horror, which strangely seemed to elevate the film.

Cutting to the chase: I like the film to a point – it is popcorn worthy, but somehow it is not as satisfying as it once was. It’s fun to watch and it does have its good spots, but I think that I prefer the original. The acting is decent and it does have some interesting characters, but the story just seems to unravel, in places. If you like sci-fi horror and you are a fan of older, 1950s type horror films, you may like it. The movie is something different to watch and it is an interesting remake, in a time when remakes were not so popular