THE BLOB (1958)

One night in a small Midwestern town, Steve and Jane are in his car necking when they see what looks like a shooting star. But instead of streaking across the sky, it comes slamming down to earth in some hills on the outskirts of town. As they drive off to find it, an old man who lives nearby the landing site finds a small egg-like object which cracks open to release a bit of glowing goop that attaches itself to his arm and won't let go. Steve and Jane find him writhing in agony and take him to the local doctor who is stymied by the substance. Soon the old man has been completely engulfed by this organism. The doc discovers that even throwing acid on it does nothing and soon he is consumed by this gooey blob which grows bigger and bigger and begins to run rampant in the town. Steve tries to get the police to investigate but they think he's pulling an elaborate prank.The blob traps Steve and Jane inside an empty grocery store and they manage to escape, but when it invades the local movie house, which is showing a midnight spook show, it gets bigger and bigger and soon the entire town is frantic for help. The military arrives with bombs but even those can't stop it. Things look hopeless until Steve remembers that the blob avoided the grocery meat locker--could the blob be vulnerable to cold?

I started my October horror and sci-fi viewing with this low budget teen exploitation film which has become a minor sci-fi classic, though I suspect it's only because it was the first starring role for Steve McQueen (pictured at left in yellow, who, though playing 19, looks 30, which is about how old he was). It's well shot and brightly colored, but it largely fails to build a truly scary atmosphere like Roger Corman would have done with even less money. In fact, way too much of the 90 minute running time is taken up with padding, chatter and plotlines that go nowhere. Time is taken for an incident in which fellow teen Tony challenges Steve to a midnight drag race, setting up a traditional teen turf conflict, but it turns out that Tony and Steve are too friendly to really be threatening to each other. Two cops are given personalities, amounting to one (Dave) being understanding and tolerant and the other (Bertie) being a pain in the neck, but little is done with this. Even Jane (Aneta Corseaut), after some mild resistance to Steve's continued attempts at necking, becomes just a warm body to get in the way of the blob. The oddest plotline involves a dog that belongs to the old man. Jane takes the dog with her from the man's house, but at some point it gets away only to be stalked by the blob in the grocery store. We think it gets eaten, but a teenager claims to have seen it get away, and we never see it again. The blob itself is very effective, though the theater scene, which gets a lengthy buildup, is ultimately disappointing. As other viewers have pointed out, there seems to be no meaning to any of this, not even a simple "Keep watching the skies!" lesson. OK but not really a classic. [Streaming]