“How do you get people to protect themselves from something they don’t believe in?”
It’s a shame that The Blob has become a meme in modern times. People know of the titular amoeboid and that the “King of Cool” Steve McQueen starred in one of his earliest roles, but otherwise dismiss the film as an inconsequential B-movie. Genre enthusiasts and cinephiles seem to know what’s up, though, considering that The Blob has gotten the boutique treatment from Criterion and is cited by a number of sources as a game-changer in the creature feature genre. At first the film appears to be a predictable monster movie—and make no mistake, it is predictable; you can guess the main story beats after the first few scenes. But once you are in the thick of it, you’ll realize that some things are different, most notably that our protagonist’s main nemesis is not the gooey ball of red-dyed silicon, but his elders. It has a lot more to say, if you want to read some social commentary into it—Communism (it was made in the 1950s, after all), the loss of personal identity, critique of a structured lifestyle. Or, you could just see it as a campy B-movie; it works just fine as one, but you might be scratching your head as to why it stands out from the ranks of other monster movies from the era.
One element that sets The Blob apart from its contemporaries is that its main character is a teenager (we’ll ignore the fact that Steve McQueen was twenty-eight years old when it was made). The typical monster movie in the 1930s and ‘40s usually had a lead that was a mature professional of some sort—filmmakers in King Kong, psychiatrists in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, geologists and zoologists in Creature from the Black Lagoon. In The Blob, our protagonist finally matches up with the film’s audience—rowdy groups of teenagers chafing at the oversight of their parents. Just like the kids who wished to spend their time and money at the arcades or movie theaters or anywhere they could be themselves, McQueen’s character, Steve Andrews, and his girlfriend Jane (Aneta Corseaut) cruise around town in Steve’s convertible, chasing down a shooting star that they believe has fallen nearby.
Not only is the film dramatically anchored by its young stars, they are also the ones who are competent and resourceful problem solvers, while the peripheral authorities brush off their pleas as inconsequential pranks. Even after the police call in the young couples’ parents and have them sent home, they sneak out of their bedrooms to save the town. While I wouldn’t give all of the credit to Irvin Yeaworth’s film, young protagonists have become a mainstay in horror cinema since its release—Halloween, Carrie, Scream, etc. It’s not very hard to realize that audiences engage more with films that they can relate to; using teenage characters in movies made for teenagers just made sense.
Anyway, when we actually get to see the blob, it’s played completely straight. It doesn’t look very convincing because the special effects are entirely practical and super old, but that’s to be expected. Though the thing looks like a large spoonful of cranberry sauce, the actors give it the old college try. Working in the film’s favor is the genuinely creepy concept, the limited on screen presence, and a lack of information regarding its origins.
After cracking its meteoroid shell, the gooey silicon gloms onto an old man’s hand, beginning its consumptive streak with its first unfortunate victim (Olin Howland). As Steve and Jane are searching for their fallen star, the couple finds the frantic man and takes him to the local doctor. In Doctor Hallen’s (Stephen Chase) office, the old man is anesthetized and his goo-submerged hand covered. On the phone, Doctor Hallen rings his assistant to help him perform emergency surgery—he plans to amputate the old man’s hand. But before he can, the blob entirely consumes the old man, Doctor Hallen’s nurse assistant, and the doctor himself. Steve sees the doctor go down and alerts the police, who can’t seem to make heads or tails of the disheveled office and missing doctor… and so on and so on. Like I said, it’s predictable.
But the plot is not really what is drawing us in here. It’s the little things; the elements that are present in The Blob that lesser films and copycats seem to have missed. A dumber movie would try to explain its creepy crawly mass of wiggly jello. Not The Blob. It came from outer space, but where exactly? Is it aware of itself? Is it intelligent? Is it a single entity? Was it sent here with a purpose, or did it arrive by accident? The answer to all of these questions is an emphatic shrug. What’s odd about this choice in narrative focus is that it makes the monster much more sinister than it has any business being. The special effects that realize the blob are incredibly dated, but they serve their purpose. The only shots that I thought broke the bubble of suspension of disbelief were the model shots required when the monster became larger than the size of a building. But these foibles are few and for the most part the monster is effectively rendered.
The script tends to veer into camp territory semi-frequently, but it is streamlined enough that none of the scenes linger, and the cheesy stuff doesn’t really stick in your mind as easily as the really good stuff. The ending is an awkward sendoff, as the is monster defeated only moments after its weakness is discovered. The contrast between generations toward the end of the film is very interesting. When the townsfolk realize that the monster is affected by cold, a group of teenage boys hustle to the school to procure fire extinguishers with which to blast it. Stymied by the locked doors, it is the principal of the school who takes a rock and breaks through the window to unlock the door and let everyone in, evidence that he had learned from the rowdy teenagers that sometimes it is okay to break the rules.
Originally released as a double feature, playing at drive-ins after I Married a Monster from Outer Space, The Blob proved so popular that the showing order was flipped. Aided by Burt Bacharach and Mack David’s hit theme song, ‘Beware of the Blob’, the film went onto gross more than 35 times its production budget. It became a minor phenomenon and has endured all these years in popular culture because of its strange mixture of camp vibe, economical filmmaking, and veiled social commentary. Inspired by a 6 foot mound of “star jelly” found in Philadelphia, PA, Irvin Yeaworth’s independently made film is not about its monstrous fiend; it’s about the regimented structure of small town life, the relationships between the older and younger generations, and the individual’s tendency to lose their personality as they are absorbed into a larger community. While it is definitely a 1950s creature feature, it’s much more than that as well, and that’s why it has remained in the public consciousness while so many others have been forgotten as time has passed.