Double Blob Blog

We had a double Blob Christmas this year. Somehow toward the end of the day, after stuffing our faces and filling a couple of bags with torn wrapping paper, we ended up in front of the boob tube watching movies.

We started out with one of my old favorites, Gods Must Be Crazy and ended with two Blobs. First the old 1958 version with Steve McQueen (then known as Steven) then we succumbed to watching the 1988 version.

Bad dialogue, bad acting, bad effects, bad everything... Aren't old movies great? The remakes usually stink, and the Blob remake definitely reeked. Both movies could have been one page short stories and a ten minute movie-short easily.

Regarding the plot for the remake: I couldn't help but picture a group of people at a party, high on something, sitting around coming up with wild ways to jazz up the original story. The '58 version is probably 90% dialogue. They couldn't do that in '88, they had to have something to grab attention. They completely changed the blob's origins (not that the first one really ever speculated much in that area).

This time somehow we created it and it escaped (or was set free) and flung from the sky to the earth inside a meteor. It was faster, meaner, and managed to leave behind body parts, tremendously upping the gory factor. The blob had tentacles, which in my mind takes away some of the blob factor. I rather liked the '58 version where it just absorbed everything instead of being picky about which body parts it chose to eat. The acid was harder to believe in some ways. If it was that corrosive then it should have just eaten through walls rather than having to slip, slide and slink through corridors and shafts.

There were evil scientists / military, bad guys turning good (Matt Dillon's little brother was an environmental disgrace, throwing cans into the wilderness!). Good guys dying, snotty nurses, girls flirting with guys, the list of cliches and stereotypes is too long to capture in one short double blob blog...

Neither movies has any redeeming qualities other than yuk-value. They also both capture the idea the producers and directors had of life during those times. Great time capsules, whether there's any modicum of the true reality of life during the late 50's and late 80's is another story. I certainly remember the 80's a little differently (even without the evil Blob).

I highly recommend watching both movies. Be sure to watch the old one first. Don't watch them alone, you must have someone to laugh with, the more the merrier.