The Blob

Creature features from the 50's are a genre unto themselves. The time, the Hays Code, the shadow of WW2 still looming large, it all mashed together to influence horror in a way not seen before, or really, since. Evil that looked vaguely human weren't enough anymore, because we'd seen how horrible a human being could get. Technology had ended the war, while ushering in a new existential threat, atomic annihilation, so there was a bit of a grudge against advancing tech. And, of course, censorship in movies meant the horror had to be at somewhat arms length. This resulted in a lot of mutants and aliens being the centerpieces of horror. Movies like The Thing From Another World or Them!, with inexplicable creatures terrorizing a small community and posing a larger threat to the globe. The Blob fits in that category. A red slime from a meteor starts consuming every living being it comes across, growing bigger as it does. Acid doesn't hurt it. It can't be shot or stabbed or hit. A group of teenagers, led by Steve McQueen, are the only ones who have seen it and lived, but the authorities don't believe them because they're kids. With a 50's creature feature, you have to set your expectations reasonably. There won't be copious amounts of blood and gore; in fact, there won't be any. The acting will be kind of corny. The movie will be primarily driven not by the monster's rampage, but by the humans looking to stop it. Main characters will never be on the chopping block. And the setting should be somewhere that the idea of something horrific happening is so out of left field that being set there is a source of horror unto itself. The Blob checks all those boxes. Unlike its 1988 remake, this version of The Blob is as bloodless as a rock, and there's no attempt made at showing the titular character actually trying to consume anybody. The acting and dialogue are very of the time, which can be charming or annoying depending on your taste. The blob is only sporadically seen, with the movie more being driven by McQueen and his circle of friends, and none of them become victims. And it takes place in a nice, small town that could be in literally any state in the union. It is the template and nothing else. So, the main thing a viewer of this version of The Blob has to ask themselves is, do you even like 50's creature features? That will determine how you feel about The Blob. I find them quaint but charming. The cast is amiable, the script gives good enough reason for the adults to consider the kids nothing but hooligans playing pranks, and the way they present the blob coming through doors and vents is done well in my opinion. It's certainly not a scary movie, which is more a product of the time it was made than anything. The 50's propaganda is more low-key here than in other movies of the time; one could, I guess, see the reddish pink blob as representing communism, "assimilating" (to use the movie's word) people into its shapeless, mindless form, but it could also just be seen as a extra-terrestrial monster. I didn't think of the communism metaphor until I read a review of it, and I still think it's a stretch, but that's just me. The one thing I think the movie can be dinged for is the score; it is a lush, full orchestra score that feels more like it belongs in a Cecil B. DeMille epic than it does a silly drive-in movie about an omnivorous Jell-O mold. If you're wondering then, if the score is the only thing wrong why the 7 instead of going higher ... well, these kinds of movies still have a ceiling for me. The quaintness is part of the charm, but it's also a hinderance. I'm not expecting anything more than it can deliver, but I also know the limitations of what it can deliver, and I can't ignore that. The Blob is fun. The Blob is a well made movie of its time. But it's also just a little goofy even though it isn't trying to be. I'd be a fool to expect something out of a movie from 1957 that it couldn't deliver on, but I'd be a liar if I said the movie is of its time and it doesn't age as gracefully as other movies with a more timeless quality, like Frankenstein or The Hands Of Orlac. This is the kind of movie you dial up for some very, very, very light horror that's more fun that scares. But if you know 50's style horror ain't your thing, The Blob won't convince you otherwise.