Digestive Issues- THE BLOB (1988)

Happy 2018 everyone!  I want to start the New Year by reminding everyone about the time  America was taken over by a horrible, bloated, mean-spirited monster who wanted to greedily devour everything in its way and leave only carnage and ruin.  No, not the one in the white house.  A different horrible, bloated, mean-spirited monster. The one from 30 years ago.  The one who wanted to eat your face, not crush your spirit.  I’m speaking of the 1988 remake of THE BLOB.

The Capsule: 

Handsome football star, Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch Jr.) and his cheerleader sweetheart, Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith) have their first date ruined when Paul accidentally plows into a homeless dude with some kind of acidic loogie on his hand.  The date is further ruined when it turns out the loogie is of extraterrestrial origin, can move about on its own, and grows exponentially with every townie it eats.  Soon, the survivors, including motorcycle riding bad boy Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon), are in a mad dash not to be consumed.  The cavalry arrives in the form of Hazmat suited soldiers, but lead government space virologist, Dr. Meddows (Joe Seneca) is prioritizing science over citizens.  All the while, the deadly booger is getting bigger by the moment and there may be no way to stop it eating its way across the entire country.

The original 1958 THE BLOB was an undeniable B movie monster classic.  It was also a bit silly, even in its day.  The violence was lightweight and mostly implied.  It’s remake, on the other hand, is brutal as fuck.  Sorry to be blunt, but that phrase perfectly sums it up.  While both versions share the same premise, the tone of the two could not be farther apart.  

The difference can easily be seen in the titular beasties.  Conceptually, both versions are terrifying.  Giant, every growing, man-eating amoeba, not cool in any light.  The original blob design, though, while inventive for the time, was more than a little hokey.  How terrifying can a vat of silicone goop be?  The remake blob is a nightmare; alternatively resembling a tumorous raw liver or a probing mass of tongues.  It can go anywhere, is impossible to kill, and will thoroughly and graphically ruin anyone’s day with the barest touch.  In my opinion, this is one of the flat out scariest monsters ever filmed, just below THE THING.  

It goes deeper than a ghastly nasty, though.  THE BLOB ’88 wants to make you squirm.  Chuck Russell, fresh from the fan favorite A NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. PART 3: THE DREAM WARRIORS, is no slouch at directing horror.  However, if I had to guess who was most responsible for the edgy, take no prisoners vibe, my money is on co-screenwriter, Frank Darabont.  This is the man responsible for THE MIST and the first season of The Walking Dead, after all.  Darabont is both a great writer and an absolute sadist.  His talent is setting up the audience, leading us along in one direction before stopping us dead with a serious emotional gut punch out of left field.  He loves messing with you, and THE BLOB is a finely calibrated engine of fuckery that strips away all notions of safety. 

[Note: I am going to be more spoilery than usual, blowing some cool twists, so I hope you’ve seen this one already.]

The heroes are established right off the bat.  They are as all American as you can get, the high school football star and his cheerleader girlfriend.  Paul Taylor may be the handsome football jock, but he’s just self-conscious and bumbling enough to be relatable.  He’s the moral center that steers the movie, so when the blob creeps up on him the first time, you wonder how he’s going to get himself out danger.  Well, surprise motherfuckers!  He doesn’t.  Meg runs in to find her all American boyfriend completely engulfed and digesting away.  All Meg manages to save is his arm.  The movie totally Janet Leigh'd our hero!  [Incidental spoiler for PSYCHO].  Good thing Kevin Dillon is on hand as an alternate.

That’s not the only curve ball.  Darabont regular Jeffrey DeMunn plays Sheriff Geller, who is hard on bad boy Flagg, but is endearingly sweet on big hearted diner waitress, Fran (Candy Clark).  As soon as Geller gets wind that something seriously wrong is afoot, he heads off to the diner to check on his girl.  Good thing, too, because the blob attacks the diner and sends Flagg, Meg, and Fran running for their lives.  Fran ends up trapped in a phone booth, completely engulfed by a hungry, mobile acid bath (can anyone have made a more insanely terrifying situation, by the way?).  She desperately calls the police station for help from Geller, as we are comforted, knowing Geller is really on his way to rescue her.  Psych!  Geller is already dead and his half-digested face sliding up against the glass is the last thing Fran sees before the booth implodes.  It’s like a big middle finger to our expectations. 

There’s more to it than just the movie being a jerk, though.  It ratchets up the tension, because, as Joe Bob Briggs would say, anybody can die at any time.  There are no sure bets, no safety nets.  You can’t even count on the children making it out.  

On the scale of horrible deaths, being dissolved alive is pretty much on the very tippy top.  The remake really exploits this idea, shoving all the gooey, gory remains in your face.  Some deaths are immediate, like the diner dishwasher who is pulled head first down a sink drain (kind of like a full body garbage disposal gag), or the cop who is snapped in half like a celery stick.  Other deaths linger uncomfortably.  People wiggle around inside the blob.  Half dissolved bodies beg for help.  When the blob snatches a kid (see, told you) and disappears underwater, we’re given a few moments of calm before he pops back up, screaming his melted face off.  Can you imagine if Darabont had written the trash compactor scene in STAR WARS?  That would have made for a seriously different trilogy.   

There are a lot of satisfying deaths, like the annoying loud movie talker who gets snatched from his seat by the blob in mid spoiler.  That’s followed by the blob slurping up a half-dozen presumably non-annoying movie goers, though.  In fact, the bad guys usually get the quick demise, it’s the innocent victims who we see suffering.  On the other hand, their suffering comes by way of some truly brilliant makeup effects and prosthetic work.  Tragic, yes, but super impressive!

Interestingly, animals are the big winner here.  I pegged the dog, and definitely the stray cat, as appetizers for sure, yet they make it out fine.  If it wasn’t for that one sewer rat who (presumably) gets swallowed up, the blob would be PETA approved.

Despite all the gruesomeness, at its oozing heart, the movie is undeniable fun.  The concept is just too ludicrous to take seriously.  There are all sorts of horrible calamities that can befall a person in everyday life, being digested alive is not one of them.  Trust me, it’s super rare.  

And once the goop really starts to fly, the thrill ride pacing means you don’t have time to dwell on anyone’s grisly fate.  It’s like a well-designed, very gross haunted house ride.  There is always another, even worse thing waiting to jump out at you.  

There are plenty of oddball parts to offset the trauma, such as Dr. Meddows and his Anti-Blob Squad, complete with containment suits and M16s.  Despite Joe Seneca’s wise old grampa face, we all know these guys aren’t there to help.  Once it’s revealed that the meteorite that brought the blob to Earth was actually a satellite housing a mutated virus (thanks a lot, NASA), Meddows goes into full Ian Holms from ALIEN mode.  Capturing the creature is priority one, all townsfolk are expendable.  When an earnest scientist points out the blob will soon grow big enough to eat the whole world, one crewcut meathead even says, “This will put U.S. Defense years ahead of the Russians.”  Will these Bio-Weapon jerkoffs ever learn?

[Side note: I am 100% positive Trump wants to create a Bio-Weapons Department.]

I love the brainlessness of the military dudes who think the best way of dealing with a shapeless mass of killer Jell-O is by shooting it.  That’s like trying to wrestle fog, there is no way that will work.  Their flamethrower is more plausible, but even less effective.  At least the rocket launcher (courtesy of a very panicked Bill Mosley from TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2!) comes in handy to blow open an escape for Flagg and Meg.

The cast all do a solid job, even the ones who don't remain solid for very long.  The leads, Dillon and Smith, are the standouts.  Dillon is as likable as he has ever been, although for a bad boy, we never see him do anything bad, unless being poor is considered bad in that town. Paul McCrane has a nice arc as Deputy Briggs, who starts off as a small minded asshole, but eventually proves to be a stand up guy (though not standing up by the end).  Smith wins the crown as the cheerleader turned blobby asskicker, Meg.  She's known mostly for her later jaded and sarcastic roles, such as in the SAW films, but I wish she would get to play the hero more often.

As grim as it is, the film ends on a triumphant note.  Meg and Flagg use the monster's weakness against it and the unstoppable beast is reduced to a pile of inert bubbles.  It gives us hope for dealing with our current ravaging, uncontrollable monster who is endangering the country.  His weakness has more to do with Twitter than extreme cold, but hey, I'm sure it will lead to just as spectacular a downfall.  Better yet, it will likely be of his own causing.  Until then, lets just keep looking out for each other and try not to get swallowed up.

C Chaka