The BLoB
Ready for this jelly?
released OUT NOW! 1958 | 12 | Blu-ray
Director Irvin Yeaworth Cast steve McQueen, aneta Corsaut, earl rowe, Olin Howland
Burt Bacharach’s incongruously swinging title song – “Beware of the Blob, it creeps and leaps!” – cues this definitive ’50s schlockfest, creeping and leaping from drive-in to Blu-ray.
And the film looks sumptuous in this new digital restoration, its colours as lurid as its premise: a meteor hits a small Pennsylvania town, hatching a ravenous, ever-swelling jelly-beast. As the gelatinous threat grows the movie switches from proto-Alien body horror to standard monster-onthe-loose action, the viscous physicality of the creature adding a genuine note of extraterrestrial weirdness to a genre usually ruled by oversized insects and atomically-awoken dinosaurs.
There’s not nearly as much Blob action as you want – and the climax feels strangely thrill-free – but it’s worth a watch for the feature debut of future screen icon Steve McQueen, giving a goofball performance a million miles from the taciturn, cobalt-eyed cool that made him a star.
Extras Two audio commentaries with insights from producer Jack H Harris, director Irvin S Yeaworth Jr, actor Robert Fields and film historian Bruce Eder; “Blobabilia!”, a gallery of posters, behind-the-scenes pictures and original models from the collection of Blobmeister Wes Shank; trailer; booklet. Nick Setchfield
Tardy sequel Beware! The Blob arrived in 1972, directed by Larry Hagman, better known as JR Ewing in Dallas.