150 Word Review: 'The Blob' (1958)
Slime time
The Blob is a 1950s monster movie classic directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. about a malevolent splotch of alien jelly that swallows humans alive. And every time it eats someone, it becomes bigger and bigger. Warning: don’t poke mysterious meteors. The blob itself is a metaphor for communism/conformity/whatever America was scared of at the time. It grows into a bruise-colored boulder of goo that spreads, slowly, silently, like a virus or an idea. The blob consumes a dozen-ish innocents, including poor Nurse Kate, who puts up a fight.
It stars pre-famous Steve McQueen as a middle-aged teenager who has to convince a skeptical Pennsylvania town’s adults that killer ooze is on the loose. Luckily, his sweetheart, played by Aneta Corseaut, and his hoodlum friends help. The kids are alright in The Blob, three years after pouty-mouthed Method actor James Dean basically invented teen angst in Rebel Without A Cause.
The theme song (or one passing as such) was partially written by Burt Bacharach.
(Chuck Russell directed the 1988 remake, not the original)