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The Blob

The Blob

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What's Not To Like?
Review: SEE! Intentionally laughable corny dialogue!

SEE! The time period of the movie not being able to decide whether it is the 80s or the 50s, with hilarious results like Kevin Dillon dressed like James Dean in a motorcycle jacket, but with a mullet!

SEE! Stock characters you know and secretly love, like Candy Clark as the Diner Waitress who Acts Tough but has a Heart of Gold, especially when it comes to the amorous local sheriff, the Football Hero who is a little bit of a snob, the Misunderstood Motorcycle Punk with a crush on the heroine who looks tough and all in his leather jacket but is Smarter than he Looks, the Priest who is a Closet Drunk and preaches Hellfire and Damnation and nbllows things like "This was all foretold in the book of Revelations!" when the Blob slithers around main street, stuffing people into itself.

SEE! Candy Clark (I almost called her Candy Johnson, aka the 60's gastest Go-Go dancer, by mistake--now THAT I'd buy the DVD to see) trapped in a glass phone booth surrounded by The Blob!

SEE! Annoying characters, even bratty kids, graphically get what they deserve! Yeah!

SEE! A government conspiracy involving top brass in biohazard suits that tell main characters things like, "You're not prisoners... you're patients!" while locking them into the back of an "ambulance"?.

SEE! Chapter selections on the DVD with titles like "PUNK YES, KILLER NO".

SEE! Loving homages to the original such as the centerpiece where the Blob attacks/devours nearly an entire movie theater with a shot of terrified patrons stampeding out of the theater pursued by the blob oozing up behind them!

SEE! An urban legend involving a druggist and a teenage boy buying condoms!

SEE! A black character who not only lives through an entire horror movie, but helps save the day!

SEE! No CGI!

SEE! That's right!! Animatronic that are almost as fun as the ones in Carpenter's The Thing (some might call this a low rent version of The Thing, what with tentacles suddenly whipping out of monsters you thought were people and characters post-monster attack who retain facial features or props as they?re being slowly consumed, to the horror of other characters!

SEE! Character's loved ones melting away right in front of their very eyes front of them until they (the original character) faint from horror!

SEE! Me forcing myself to stop before I spoil any more fun surprises or talk it up too much!

I'm not saying it?s the best horror film of the 80's, (that title would go to....OK, can I pick ten instead of five? Please?) but it is one of the better gruesome and gooey monster flicks of that era. Nice high gross-out factor, with some really creative deaths. As I said before, it borrows from The Thing remake, but I think not so much as a rip-off but ina admiration for the film. Sure it?s not John Carpenter?s The Thing, but then again, what is? In fact, if you're fan of The Thing but need a break somewhere between your 10th and 20th viewing, definitely plop this one in and ge your fix.

My two cents--pick up this fun, underrated popcorn flick monster movie and get ready to have a good time. And if you don?t? Well, don?t come crying to me to explain why there weren't more CGI or A-list stars. I'm not angry with you, I lierally feel sad for you, honestly, 'cause you're missing out on a (heckuva) lot of fun.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A horror movie that is.. well.. horrifying!
Review: Perhaps I only love this movie because I happen to find THE BLOB to be the creepiest of all mosters. Shapeless.... deadly.. consuming all in its path. CREEPY!

Just look at the cover to see the kind of carnage you will be seeing in this film. The acting is more than passable for this type of movie, and the comedy is all intentional and kept to a minimum.

Russel clearly understands why the blob is so frightening a villain, and he exploits that in gruesome, wrenching horror scenes were characters are entangled and being digested inside of it. The scares are all real and visual based. They arent cheap jump-out-and-go-boo scares, but legitimate, visceral thrills. The music isn't brash shrieking notes just to jolt you, but subdued and suspenseful.

Unless you don't find anything in horror movies frightening, this is a horror movie you SHOULD SEE. I'm only 17 so I have no nostalgic attatchments to the lame original.

For a MONSTER movie that is frightening, not cheap, thrilling, and visceral, THE BLOB is THE movie to get

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A blob for the late 1980's.
Review: Even if you've ever seen the original with Steve McQueen, this 1988 remake can still offer up some chills of its own. The plot starts out resembling the '58 film so closely (with the mysterious blob being found in a meteorite by the local homeless old man of the hills) that even after the blob starts to reveal its ominous urges to a small and already dying town, you can be forgiven for expecting a tame chiller. But then the film exposes the blob - actually exposing what happens to its victims - in way we're not prepared for. (Originally, we were scared enough of the blob assuming that it was simply just bad enough to get sucked into it. Here we see that to be consumed by its protoplasm means a horrifying death though consumption by its acidic insides). Unlike the creature of the original (or the Larry Hagman-directed sequel/parody of 1972), this blob doesn't just ooze or roll, he grabs with flying pseudo pods - he's a blob for the Gordon Gecko '80s. Though as shapeless as an amoeba, the blob can bend steel, suck victims through sink drains or cracks in walls, and project huge flat pods like feet that swat men down like flies. Kevin Dillon steps in for Steve McQueen as the local bad boy who discovers the creature and a way to at least contain it (he's introduced in a scene meant as an in-joke in which Dillon attempts a Mcqueen style motorcycle stunt). As in '58, the humans of the town are too busy being human (flaunting their parents, cooking books, copping feels or, like Dillon, trying to keep from running afoul of the law) to fall for some crazy story about a shapeless monster from space (or somewhere) that consumes.

Besides the story, this flick is also a great time capsule, c. 1988. Nothing confirms this more than Dillon himself - with his leather jacket and long hair, he looks like a waking VH-1 rockumentary. Nobody today would dream of leaving global salvation to a kid who looks more like Jon Bon Jovi than Bon Jovi does today. I guess we can thank our lucky stars that somebody saved us the trouble of doing that in 1988.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Scream now, while there's still room to breathe.
Review: I really enjoyed this remake. I love the original, and I think a good job was done staying true to the original, while managing to update it for a new generation. I've seen a lot of remakes, and very often you get a sense like the director is trying to avoid ties to the original movie, but not here.

I thought this movie was fast paced and fun. It kept me interested all the way through. It was quite violent at times, and gory, but when your subject matter is about an all consuming space blob, you sort of expect that kind of thing.

The interaction between the characters was pretty well done. Kevin Dillon plays Brain Flagg, our hero who is also an outcast due to his rebellious nature. Shawnee Smith plays the female lead, the all American cheerleader homecoming queen type. The two are thrown together to fight the blob.

This version starts off essentially the same as the original, the blob arriving from space and attacking an old man in the woods. The old man is found by the teenagers, and is taken to the hospital, where it proceeds to consume some characters. Brian Flagg is initially suspected by the police, as he's no stranger to them, but they have no physical evidence to hold him, so they have to let him go. Soon, people in this small town start disappearing, and the police have their hands full. Brian and Meg are the only two who have some idea what's going on, but when Meg tries to relate her story, what she saw, no one really believes her, and Brian isn't very credible, due to the reputation he has with the town in general.

Soon, the blob starts making itself known, consuming many people. Some kind of government agency shows up, and seals the town with the purpose of capturing the voracious organism. Facts about the origin of the blob come to light, and it seems the government agency has a larger agenda than they originally stated. I thought it was quite funny how a number of people would fire at the blob with pistols and automatic weapons, only to find it had no effect on the creature. There were some pretty horrific scenes with people getting consumed by the blob, showing them basically dissolving as if bathed in acid. One scene in particular was when a ten or twelve year old boy gets taken. I was surprised to see this happen, as it's seems pretty rare to me that kids get hurt or killed in these monster movies. I did see this when it came out, which was like 15 years ago, but I didn't remember that part. I didn't mind so much, as the kid was pretty annoying. There's a climatic battle at the end, and the teenagers save the day, but in the last scene we are left wondering if the horror is truly over.

The main differences between this movie and the 1958 version are the effects and the level of violence. In the 1958 version, the violence was more implied, where this version expands on that, showing us many people being consumed. Also, the teenagers in this movie can really pass themselves off as teenagers, while in the 1958 version, Steve McQueen and his colleagues seemed a little older than was suggested. Also, some interesting plot elements are added which suggest the creature may not have originated from space, but here on Earth. Also, the special effects are weel done, and show us more of what we didn't see in the 1958 version.

I think the 1958 version, which I also own, is and always will be a classic, and this makes a nice companion and is a good movie in it's own right.

Cookieman108

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: WELL MADE AND FUNNY AND FRIGHTENING REMAKE
Review: This 1988 remake is far better than 1958's THE BLOB it features rebel Brian and cheerleader Meg fighting the acid like ooze wiping teens mostly into sex and dirty vagrants.this one has nice sense of comedy,outstanding special effects featuring a man getting plunged down a drain,the sewer part and theater.the gore is plentiful and this one features no nudity or drug use.Rated R for violence and gore and profanity.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Blob- Fear has no shape
Review: This 1988 version of The Blob is fantastic. I Love this movie so much, words cannot describe. Shawnee Smith, Kevin Dillion, Donovan Leitch, erika eleniak, candy clarke and the always georgeou Ricky Paull Goldin are all perfectly cast in their roles. The effects are great. I adore the music. Chuck Russell made the best movie. One of the best movies around.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: To quote the heroine: "Come on, you can do better than that"
Review: I have fond memories of the 1958 original version of "The Blob," mainly because they actually showed this film to us in high school. Do not ask me why we were the beneficiaries of this largesse, especially since it lacks any of the implicit arguments against teenage sex that we find in this 1988 remake. Actually, my favorite scene in this modern B-movie is when a high school Romeo out on Lover's Lane has gotten his date into a drunken stupor and tries to take advantage of her unconscious condition. Of course, he is just one of many people to get there's in this film, but he also represents one of the few times that we are rooting for the monster.

On one hand this remake is fairly faithful to the original: once again it is the town's young stud juvenile delinquent (Kevin Dillon in the Steve McQueen role) who has to save the town from the invader from outer space and the film does a nice homage to the original's best scene, when the Blob takes out the local movie house. But because this is thirty years later the political sensibilities of the film are updated considerably. The damsel in distress this time around (Shawnee Smith), might need a hand from the aforementioned young stud, but she is also capable of being part of the solution. Then there is the whole government conspiracy sub-plot that makes this movie something of a precursor to "The X-Files."

In fact, if you want to get reductionalistic (and that is one of the fun things you get to do with a bad B-movie like "The Blob"), this movie is a cross between the original "The Blob," "The X-Files," the remake of "The Thing" (in terms of the gross special effects"), and any teen flick where the good girl and the bad boy end up together. The result is a modern version of a classic drive-in flick, which is to say, a below par flick where you do not have to keep your eyes on the screen the entire time to be able to follow the action. The blood & gore level is pretty high, which means your feeling for this film comes down to whether your wince or laugh at such moments.

I laughed, ergo, three stars.

Final Note: Keep your eye on current E.R. pain in the butushka Paul McCrane as Deputy Bill Briggs, who discovers there are worst things than having a helicopter take off your arm.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of my all time favorites
Review: It doesn't get any better than this. Good 80s splatter punk, great special affects, a complete remake of a Steve Mcqueen Classic, and above all-Ultimate horror. This is a great horror movie to watch late at night.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Costs of Prodding Meteorites With Sticks
Review: When hearing people swear by the classics of horror while giving newer "remakes" the cold shoulder by proclaiming the inferiority of their posturing almost immediately, I oftentimes find myself wondering if they actually watch the movies they make such broad generalizations about before commenting on them. I say this because a movie in the "reissue phase" of livelihood will oftentimes find itself with a facelift that will make it a totally different piece for its predecessor, wearing not only a newer cast and script changes but also a new budget and effects to do the idea justice. This, in turn, opens something outdated to an audience that would be turned off to a colorless feature offering inside jokes to a generation they don't understand, granting them insight to ideas that would otherwise find themselves lost and that might help turn a viewer on to the idea of seeing a classical rendition of something because of a remade influence.

Such is the case in this reissuance of The Blob; a movie that keeps the namesake of something from an earlier era in film when graphic depictions of the horrific and the monstrous themes that empower the needy mind weren't actual allowed - without adopting its stance. In fact, I found it particularly chilling in some instances as bodies were dissolved inside that reddish-hued monstrosity and as some people met their fates in terrible fashions; an idea that slips well beyond the realm of the campy original and into the glamorous world of the terrible. In it, some people find themselves folded, some crushed beneath waves of gel, and others seem to take the Nestea Plunge into waters hungry with acidic undertones and appetites that make special effects fun. To me, that is what makes this film stand apart from its former titlebearer.

The premise of the movie involves a meteorite falling in the woods and someone being around to see it. Drunk and clearly ignorant of the dangers that all movie meteorites keep in their possession, our "patient zero" opts to prod at it with a stick until something comes oozing out. Further deciding that a stick would be the best offense to feed curiosity, he finds himself manacled in the lovely embrace of something horrifyingly delicious. Enter the town's local badboy, his need to play and subsequently wreck his motorcycle throwing him directly into contact with this drunken miser and with his attempts to remedy the invasive organism's attempt to claim his hand by trying to hack it off; a plan that doesn't hold much in the way of reasoning. This leads to a run toward a nearby road, the introduction of two more of a vast array of characters, and the carting of our friendly organism to the feeding ground called civilization. That's when the real fun and subsequent government intervention begins.

For anyone that likes movies with the dying always in earshot of their otherworldly hero (or menace, if that's how you see it), a storyline that can make one laugh at its bumbling and at its surprise ending, and that is saturated in gruesome spectacles, then this edition of The Blob is for you. It will not disappoint.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A masterpiece.
Review: This is a major improvement over the original one. The storyline is good as is the acting, actors, dialogue and action sequences with great special effects without all that computer generated nonsense that is plaguing today's movies (watch Star Wars-the attack of the clones and you'll understand what I mean). Overall: EXCELLENT.


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