The BLOB

   1. Film (1958). Tonylyn/Paramount. Dir Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr, starring Steve McQueen, Aneta Corseaut, Earl Rowe. Screenplay Theodore Simonson, Kate Phillips. 85 mins. Colour.

   An ALIEN Blob which grows by absorbing flesh reaches Earth in a hollow meteorite and begins to consume the inhabitants of a small US town. Constantly enlarging, it is finally defeated by a young man who discovers that extreme cold renders it harmless. The special effects are by Barton Sloane. Simple, moderately well made, TB is now affectionately remembered as one of the definitive MONSTER MOVIES of the period. A 1971 sequel, Beware the Blob (vt Son of Blob US), was dir Larry Hagman, better known as J.R. of the tv soap opera Dallas. A black-comedy spoof, it is only mildly amusing.

   2. Film (1988). Palisades California/TriStar. Dir Chuck Russell, starring Shawnee Smith, Kevin Dillon, Donovan Leitch, Del Close. Screenplay Russell, Frank Darabont. 95 mins. Colour.

   This remake, which nowhere credits its 1958 predecessor, follows the original story quite closely. Proficient and exciting, with good and expensive state-of-the-art horror special effects (imploding faces, a man sucked down a plughole) and a spunky heroine (Smith), it is nonetheless rigidly formulaic. All the main changes (the Blob is now the result of a US Government experiment in biological warfare) are derived from other films, notably The CRAZIES (1973). Distance may have lent too much charm to the original; this has none at all. The novelization is The Blob * (1988) by David BISCHOFF.

   PN

   See also: CINEMA.