Starring Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland, Stephen Chase, John Benson, George Karas, Lee Payton, Elbert Smith, Hugh Graham
Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
Expectations: High. Genre movies don’t get Criterion editions too often.
I expected The Blob to be about a slow-moving, unstoppable alien blob terrorizing a small town. What I wasn’t expecting was how well the film also integrates the ’50s juvenile delinquency film genre in with its horror, resulting in a film that works on both levels and entertains throughout. It seems pretty clear how this one gained such a big reputation, the genre crossover must have made it resonate incredibly well with kids who had a hard time getting their parents to listen to them. So basically: come for the killer blob, stay for the frustrated youths that you’ll probably relate to.
I’m not sure that a plot synopsis is necessary here, it’s The Blob. It’s kinda all right there. Well, not as much as it’s all right there in the title of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but how many things could a movie called The Blob be about? A stain on a shirt? That fat guy in the X-Men comics? … That’s all I got, and this movie isn’t about either of those. Y’see Steve (Steve McQueen) and Jane (Aneta Corsaut, The Andy Griffith Show‘s Helen Crump) are out smoochin’ under the stars when a shooting star bursts through the sky and lands somewhere close. Steve’s something of a stargazer, so off they drive in search of the rock from outer space.