While it seems remakes/reboots are all the trends now with most of them failing, filmmakers decades ago seemed to get it right. John Carpenter’s The Thing is seen now as one of his best movies with a thrilling score by the late great Ennio Morricone. When Mel Brooks tapped David Cronenberg to do a remake of The Fly, people thought it was going to be a silly B-movie. Much to their surprise, people discovered it was a gruesome body horror flick that many saw as a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic.
I’ve heard rumors, Brooks tricked people into thinking it was going to be a light-hearted movie handing out deely bobbers. People sat through it at first shoveling popcorn and candy in their mouths. Then, they began to run from the theater gagging and vomiting. Brooks came up with the tagline, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” And a meeting between Cronenberg and Martin Scorsese to the director casting himself as the OB/GYN during that dream sequence where Geena Davis’ character gives birth to a giant maggot. Scorsese had commented the Toronto-based filmmaker looked more like a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.
Both The Thing and The Fly proved that in the right hands, a remake can be better than the original. Unfortunately, while The Fly was a success, The Thing wasn’t. And when Chuck Russell, who had helmed the third Nightmare on Elm Street movie which was an improvement over the second one, now had the opportunity to remake The Blob, he changed things up.
The original 1958 was basically a sci-fi B-movie with a young up and coming Steve McQueen. It looked cheesy and even had that opening title sequence which made it sound like it was a beach comedy. But by 1988, the horror genre had been washed out by the slasher genre. Russell along with his friend and collaborator Frank Darabont wrote a script to the original that would incorporate elements but definitely improve on the special effects. The titular character in the 1958 movie looks like some strawberry jam someone picked up from the local A&P.
Moving the location away from small-town Pennsylvania, the movie is set in a fictional California community called Arborville during the middle of Fall as they’re experiencing a heatwave. The town is a ski resort community. Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon) is the local high school delinquent. He gets involved in petty crimes and is on the radar of the local sheriff Herb Gellar (Jeffrey DeMunn).
At the same time, star high school football player Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch) has finally been able to ask out the preppy cheerleader, Megan “Meg” Penny (Shawnee Smith). They’re going out on a date after the football game. What neither know is their paths are going to cross with Brian. Out in the countryside, Brian is working on his motorcycle when he notices the elderly hermit (Billy Beck) has a pinkish slimey goo all over his hand and is trying to hack it off.
He runs out toward the road where he’s hit by the car driven by Paul. With Brian, they load the man in the car and take him to the hospital. Brian leaves heading back to the woods to get his motorcycle while Paul and Meg wait. But Paul soon discovers that the bottom half of the old man is missing as the old man is dead. The alien substance on the old man’s hand is growing with each person or animal it consumes.
Even worse, the government has arrived to the town as the substance on the man’s hand was from a meteorite that crashed nearby. However, under the direction of Dr. Christopher Meddows (Joe Seneca), everyone will soon learn that they are “expendable” as the U.S. government wants to quarantine the town and obtain the substance.
With special effects that are an improvement of the original, it ups the violence and gore. However, some scenes are kinda cheap looking even for 1988. And also others are creative as a victim discovers the yo-yo of the previous one dangling from the ceiling seconds before his death. But what Russell and Darabont have done is to add some dimensions to the characters even if they are going to be consumed by the Blob.
Arborville feels like an actual town with regular people. Meg’s father, Tom (Art LeFleur) is the local pharmacist who sells Paul some condoms only to find out later, he’s dating Meg. And legendary Del Close is the local pastor, Rev. Meeker, who has a more crucial role in the movie than you’d think. There’s even a nice flirtation between Gellar and Fran Hewitt (Candy Clark), the owner/proprietor of the local diner. I also like how a black alley cat is used to scare a character and then we see the same cat is still alive after the Blob has come through. There’s no reason to have cats and dogs around if they’re going toing to be killed off.
And even though he’s the town “baddie,” Brian proves he’s all show and actually cares for others and has some smarts. And Meg isn’t the pampered cheerleader. She knows how to take care of herself. Seneca comes off as the great human antagonist. At first, he seems pleasant and friendly. But when he says something and people don’t follow his orders, he’s willing to do whatever it takes.
The Blob pretty much shakes up horror conventions. Seneca who famously played Willie Brown in Crossroads is perfectly cast. No one in 1988 would think a black man as the resident scientist in charge of a huge operation like this. There’s also Moss Woodley (Beau Billingslea), a mechanic, who ends up having more to do than being the token black man who gets killed.
I also like how Dillon holds back on his one-dimension tough guy persona he had done in No Big Deal and Platoon. Brian is supposed to be a bad boy but it looks like all he really does is driving a motorcycle and smoke cannabis. That’s not really bad. And Smith, herself, would go on to appear in the Saw franchise as Amanda Young who was a potential victim of the Jigsaw Killer and then an accomplice.
Sadly, The Blob didn’t go over well with critics and bombed at the box office, making only about $8 million with a $10 million budget. By the time it came out, horror movies were just hated by all it seems. Movies nowadays that are considered horror classics were despised during their contemporary times. Even though Child’s Play made a modest success of $44 million about four times more than its budget, United Artists and its parent company MGM didn’t want to make a sequel stating they’d wouldn’t make horrors. Believe it or not, it was Steven Spielberg who convinced Universal Pictures executives to produce a sequel.
Russell bounced back in the 1990s with hit movies such as Jim Carrey’s The Mask and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Eraser. But his last hit movie was 2002’s The Scorpion King with Dwayne Johnson. As for Darabont, he went on to write and direct adaptations of the works of Stephen King. The first is The Shawshank Redemption and then he did The Green Mile with both being nominated for Best Picture Oscars and Darabont getting Oscar nominations for Adapted Screenplay. He’s also directed The Mist with its controversial ending.
He also helped develop The Walking Dead for its first two seasons before leaving as showrunner after disagreements with AMC. Darabont would also cast DeMunn in all movies as well as the first two seasons of TWD.
Nowadays, The Blob is looked on more favorably for its special effects and the tone of the distrust of government. This was released a year after the Iron-Contra Affair three months away from the Presidential election. The ending sets up a sequel which never really happened. It’s a shame because Close does great performance in his role. Close was well regarded by many actors, such as Bill Murray, for his work in Second City and the founding of ImprovOlympic. He’s believed to be the John the Baptist of many famous actors as they were his students.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 