How’s this for a lousy horror movie pitch?
We’re gonna remake a hokey ’50s movie whose only claim to fame is it launched the career of a young Steve McQueen. And to top it off, we have no stars and we kill off the apparent hero in the first 15 minutes.
No wonder the public yawned when 1988’s “The Blog” hit theaters.
Yet “The Blob” defied the odds to become one of the decades best horror sleepers.
The Blob in question crashes to earth via a small asteroid and launches itself onto the arm of a drifter. And it starts growing at a rapid pace from there, devouring the poor hobo and half of a small town before its done.
Our heroes are Kevin Dillon, nearly 20 years before he’d find fame as “Entourage’s” Johnny Drama, and “Becker’s” Shawnee Smith. Dillon plays the town troublemaker who summons enough heroism to fight the blob.
The effects are state of the art — for the ’80s. The story enfolds with the right blend of humor and horror, and while “The Blob” won’t evoke nightmares you’ll be thoroughly entertained.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Regs 10.29.08 at 8:39 pm
Won’t evoke nightmares? Are you kidding me? I was 8 when this movie came out and I distinctly remember excusing myself from the living every time the trailer came on TV. That dude getting pulled down the drain head first? Wow. I wasn’t scared of Jason, Freddie, or Mike Myers, but I never looked at the shower the same again.
cftoto 10.29.08 at 9:11 pm
That’s great.
When I recommend older films, I try to balance out my warm memories of them with a more sober look at how they’ll affect modern audiences.
I remember being all alone in my upstairs bedroom years ago watching the commercial for a horror movie — I think it was “Suspiria” — and I got so spooked I sprinted down the stairs to the family living room at warp speed.