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The Blob (1958)

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87 comments in total

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16 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
A true classic., 27 March 2000

Author: lartronic from Akron, Ohio

This movie is wonderful. What separates it from other 50's sci-fi is the fact that the alien has no features, no face, eyes, anything, yet it can't be killed. I especially like the idea that this film doesn't take place over a few days, it takes place in one night, lasting supposedly past midnight.It's also scary that once the blob gets on you, you can't get it off. you're stuck in it, as it dissolves your flesh and slowly devours your body. My all time favorite 50's sci-fi film, and what is sometimes considered the quintessential one. I can see why this rocketed Steve McQueen to stardom. All this and a catchy theme song! How can you go wrong?

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12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Nostalgia Heaven!, 8 January 2006

Author: greyeyesoul from Toronto

This movie is of almost generation-defining importance to some of us born in the early post-war years in that (and especially if you were born between 1946 and 1953 and loved spending Saturday afternoons at your neighborhood movie house) you almost certainly saw it. And the memory of seeing it has probably stayed with you. It's style is the stuff of a brief and somehow gloriously exciting moment in our growing up days.

It had a modern, space-age storyboard for the audiences of it's time. The set was any town with a supermarket and a movie theater that would be packed for a Friday midnight show. It has hot rods and rebellious youth, but in the 'why can't they let us have fun' way rather than the disturbed, histrionic rebel-without-a-cause way. All characters were identifiable to us - teens, parents, the old man, the doctor, the nurse, the mechanic, the boy, the puppy, even the cops - were sympathetic to us. We could relate to them all

It had a singularly horrifying monster. It's first victim is heard moaning 'it hurts.....it hurts' and we were convinced and frightened. The menace grows continually throughout the story. There are intense periods of suspense, colourful effects, a fabulous lead in McQueen, and moments of humour, both intended and not. It even had an almost over-the-top sad part to make the more sensitive of us feel like crying.

I saw it in summer, age 9 or so, double billed with 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space', and was so thrilled by the experience of this particular double feature that I went back a couple more times before it left. Everyone I knew saw it. Everyone I knew loved it.

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13 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Excellent B-grade entertainment!, 11 May 2002

Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

The Blob is a classic 1950s B-movie sci-fi flick. You probably know the story: two teens (Steve McQueen & Aneta Corsaut) see a meteorite hit the ground, and when they go to look for it, they run into an old man with some weird...blob attached to his arm. They take him to the doctor's office, and then go to find out what happened. From there, the blob spreads, eating everyone in its path. The special effects are cheesy fun, as is the story. There are a lot of great touches, like the cop who plays chess over the radio with a cop in another district. It's no masterpiece, but it has a special place in its genre. Steve McQueen is very good. 8/10.

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14 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
A True Classic, 29 August 2004

Author: LivingDog from NYC, NY

No hidden agenda. Pure scifi. All fun.

I saw the original on TV and was scared pretty bad. I was a kid :)

The original one can be appreciated more when compared to the new one which I saw and have forgotten. The original one, starring the great movie star Steve McQueen (BULLET), is by far the better and only version anyone should see.

The movie production is dated, but the fx used to make the Blob stands up the test of time. I was convinced that that thing was moving on its own accord. 10/10

-Zafoid

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17 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
King of Kool's first, 19 December 2004

Author: skarbear6404 from United States

The only notable thing about this film is that it was Steve McQueen's first big starring role.

McQueen's talent is undeveloped and raw but refreshingly honest in this campy little sci-fi horror piece. Steve shows himself as the anti-establishment, hot rod car loving actor who would become a polished icon of the film industry just five years hence.

Later on, McQueen would say he hated this film and that "he was the blob". But everyone has to start somewhere and The Blob is cute, fresh and innocent. Would that we all had stayed that way.

The plot is fast paced and although predictable, still an entertaining hour or so. And it's really fun to see Steve McQueen before he became The King of Kool (and Anita Corsaut before she became Andy Taylor's girlfriend). A close friend sent me the DVD a while back and it's a treasured addition to my Steve McQueen film collection.

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10 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Gobs of Fun, 2 November 2004
Author: BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC

What a fun time can be had watching The Blob! A meteorite with a blob inside it lands, attatches itself to an old man's hand, engulfs the old man, a nurse, a doctor, and so on...until it is a huge mass of jelly-like substance squeezing through small openings and killing anything and everything in its path. A very young Steve McQueen plays the small-town teenager who just can't get any of the establishment(adults) to listen to him. The film was shot with a shoestring budget and the actors, with the exception of McQueen who shows talent and personality even at this youthful age, range from mediocre to downright bad(Doc Hallen for example), but none of that is overly important to the monster itself. Nothing like it had ever been on film before and some scenes stand out as decidedly very original and memorable. The Spook Movie festival in the movie theater and the finale at the diner are such classic scenes.

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
A cheesy horror flick that happens to be very well done!, 16 May 1999
Author: andy-227 from Sterling Heights, Michigan

Hey, I know all about the campy horror flicks of the 50's, with the women screaming at the cameras while the monsters carry them away. A spoof of that genere was made into the movie "Matinee", which was inspired by William Castle. But, if any one of those flicks stands out as something actually very good, it would be "The Blob"! The performances, including Steve McQueen's, really give the film life, instead of a mindless junk fest for teenagers. The blob itself, is a really scary monster, because it has no shape, no face, no reactions to anything. Nothing! Just an ooze of slime that crawls along, looking for more things to eat. Things like "The Fly" just look hilarious, with big bulging eyes, and a helpless woman screaming at the top of her lungs. Suprisingly, "The Blob" has very little of that. You will have fun with this flick! Oh, and take my advice, STAY AWAY FROM THE REMAKE!

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Nothing Can Stop It, Janey Girl!, 30 May 2005

Author: gftbiloxi (gftbiloxi@yahoo.com) from Biloxi, Mississippi

Who would think Andy Griffith's "Helen Crump" (Aneta Corsaut) had a Steve McQueen movie in her past? But that is only one of several weird and wonderful things about the ultimate 1950s teenagers-battle-creatures movie, which might best be described as Rebel Without A Cause meets God Knows What From Outer Space. The Rebel is Steven McQueen (who would shortly decide that "Steve" sounded less prissy), a good boy with just enough wild to be interesting; the very wholesome yet understanding girlfriend is the aforementioned Aneta Corsaut. It was bad enough when their date was disrupted by teenage hot-rodders, but they are considerably more nonplussed when they encounter a gelatinous, man-eating What Is It that rides down to earth on its own hotrod meteor--and begins gobbling up townfolk right and left. But will the grown ups believe them? Of course not, what do they know, they're just kids!

The movie is teeny bopper at its teeny bopping best. The actors take the rather pretentious script very seriously, with many a soulful look into each other eyes, and the "adult" supporting cast probably says "Kids!" very third sentence or so. But the real pleasure of the film its creature, which is well imagined, well-executed, and often manages to generate a surprising degree of suspense. And although clearly on the cheap side (check out those miniature sets, guys!), THE BLOB is actually a fairly well-made film--and there's that catchy little theme song thrown in for good measure. The 40-plus crowd (myself included) will enjoy the movie as nostalgia, but that won't prevent them from hooting right along with the younger set at its whole-milk-and-white-bread 1950s sensibility, and the film would be a great choice for either family-movie night or a more sophisticated "grown ups only" get together. Make plenty of Jello cubes for movie snacking! Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
pure terror at age ten in 1958, 31 March 2006

Author: p-flaherty from present day Earth

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I wasn't aware of Steve McQueen in 1958. I only knew that I was extremely frightened about going to see this film. (I'd been devastated by the movie "Trantula" at age seven . . . but I was ten now). The 1st scene where the Blob crawls up the farmer's probing stick and engulfs his hand was enough to make me want to leave the theater. But I stayed and suffered through each of our monster's attacks. I felt such horror when Steve and his girl barely made it out of the doctor's office (poor doc), and even more when The Blob entered a movie theater and devoured a large portion of the audience . . . so many in fact that IT oooooozzzzzzed out of the front doors, too huge now to fit through just one. It seemed indestructible and unlimited in growth potential, and when it trapped poor Steve in a sieve-like diner, he seemed like a sure dinner to be.

To say that the Blob was cold would be a modern day description, but in the end, better icy than scaring and mentally rupturing little kids.

I remember walking home that evening with my uncle Nick, trying to act brave. He knew I was in trouble, and when I got into bed that night I could not only feel the Blob in the room, but when I summoned up the courage to look down at the floor, there the red pulsating, heart-like hungry dude sat, waiting for me to try and get up and go to the bathroom. It took months to recover.

I'm 57 years old now . . . I've made it.

Of course The Blob wasn't destroyed.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Smarter than the average horror film, 23 January 2001
Author: benzene from Boulder, Colorad0

I have read many of the user comments and I think that the film is generally not getting credit for being a smart thriller. Why does the monster have to be on-screen to make it good? Hitchcock said that suspense plays better than action and although this film missed many opportunities to be more suspenseful, it's is at least not stupid.

In how many horror films today does the hero know the monster and its nature when he should? Steve knows what he's dealing with almost from the beginning and his frustration is not being able to convince the authorities.

Yet the authorities act in a totally credible way as well, even the annoying sergeant. Who would believe such a story from a bunch of "kids" (we know Steve wasn't a kid, but his character is).

One key example of the movie's intelligence: Steve is yelling to Dave to get CO2 fire extinguishers long after Dave has already gotten the message and dispatched people to get them. How many movies made in the 90s would be smart about this subtle detail?

I'm really tired of watching movies and having people behave in ways different than they really would in real life (the most irritating recent example is Tom Hanks falling asleep with the flashlight on in Cast Away). Horror films in particular do this in spades (which is why the Scream films have been so popular), but The Blob, to me, stayed pretty true to its characters, and in so doing made a smarter and better film.

Yes there are many flaws, perhaps biggest is Steve McQueen's very uneven performance, but I think they missed key opportunities for suspense that could have turned this above average, kinda scary, kinda funny movie that's a cult favourite into a true classic.

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