Some time after I saw The Blob, I read in one of the books at my school library that there was a sequel in 1972. The book referred to it as Son of the Blob and many years later, I saw it on AMC one night (remember back when AMC was an awesome channel?). I didn't really pay that much to attention to it because it come across as interesting. I saw it on DVD somewhere, this time with the title Beware! The Blob, and I almost got it but decided not to. I'm glad I didn't because I just watched the movie in order to do this review and I can tell you that this movie blows ass.
James Rolfe of Cinemassacre.com and best known as the Angry Video Game Nerd said it best when he said that everything that made the original great is gone in this movie. Of course, there are a lot of cheesy horror and monster flicks that are so bad that they're enjoyable but this movie is a chore to get through. I'm pretty sure that it was shot on 16mm film because it has that grainy look to it. At some points, it's so dark that you can't tell what's going on. Another problem that the movie has is the tone. While the original film was treated as a serious film with some mildly campy humor, this movie is pure cheese. It's clearly trying to be a comedy as well as a horror film (I think) but it either makes you scratch your head in bewilderment or focuses too long on something that's supposed to be funny but just isn't. The credits sequence is baffling to say the least. As they roll, we watch a kitten wander around in the grass while a bizarre and goofy piece of music plays. When I first saw the movie on AMC that night, I was like, "The hell?"
Whereas Steve Andrews saw the blob consume somebody and Jane didn't, the roles are reversed here. This time, the lead female character, Lisa, sees the blob eating a man and tries to tell her boyfriend, Bobby. He doesn't really believe her until he comes across the blob himself and then they spend the rest of the movie trying to warn the townspeople. That leads me to the characters and the acting. None of the characters are likable in the slightest, They're either bland, stupid, or obnoxious. The male lead, Bobby, is played by Robert Walker Jr., son of Robert Walker, best known as the psychotic Bruno in Alfred Hitchcock's classic Strangers on a Train. I think acting talent skipped a generation with Jr. Granted, he doesn't have much to do in this film anyway but he just comes across as bland, with none of the charisma of Steve McQueen. Gwynne Gilford, who plays Lisa, is the same way. All she does is scream and have breakdowns. Nothing else. None of the other characters do any better. In fact, most of them are just cannon fodder for the blob. Whereas the original focused on Steve and Jane encountering the blob and then trying to warn people about it, this one almost entirely ignores the two main characters in the middle and focuses on random people getting killed by the blob. There's a dumb police officer who cracks down on two teens playing music in a drainpipe (what?), a bunch of bums (one of whom is played by Burgess Meredith, which pains me to say that, and the film's director, Larry Hagman), and a hair stylist who thinks he's an artist. One funny instance is when the blob attacks this Turkish guy when he's in the bathtub. He escapes but he's running down the streets naked and the police bring him in. (Not to mention, he keeps losing and regaining his accent.)
Richard Stahl's character of Edward Fazio is supposed to be a pompous asshole whose car is damaged by Lisa when she's in a panic but he comes across as annoying more than a jerk. It's a running joke throughout that they keep encountering him and when Bobby and Lisa try to warn the people at a bowling alley about the blob, they discover he owns the alley. He doesn't die either, which is unforgivable. The sheriff, played by Richard Webb, is another bland character and at the end, he keeps blabbing on and on until the blob manages to ooze toward him and, supposedly, eat him. He's also the only one in these films to refer to the monster as a "blob", which I suppose is special.
As I said, the movie focuses too much on stuff that's meant to be funny but comes across as filler. You have a scene with this idiotic scoutmaster, played by Dick Van Patten, having to deal with his boy-scouts and get them to pitch a tent. He keeps taking away one kid's toy but the kid always produces another one. Later, you see their campsite deserted, suggesting that the blob devoured them. This would be a dark twist but at the end, the kids reappear and reveal that the blob only killed the scoutmaster. What was the point of them? They don't add anything to the plot! I've mentioned the running gag with Fazio but I'll add on to it: when Lisa hits his car, the camera focuses on him getting out, yelling at her, and throwing things at her. Again, what was the point except in getting a stupid laugh? And there's a dumb instance between the sheriff and his bumbling deputy at the climax that diffuses the tension even more. By the way, the sheriff is white and the deputy is black. I'm not trying to insinuate anything but I can't help but wonder.
Another thing that bugs me: this is supposed to be a sequel to The Blob, correct? The story is that Chester, a technician, has returned home from laying a pipeline in Alaska (I think) and has brought with him a frozen piece of the blob unearthed by his team. We can assume that they were laying the pipeline near where the blob was dropped at the end of the original film except for glaring detail: Chester was working in Alaska supposedly, whereas the blob was dropped in the arctic! But that's not the worst of it. Later, before he gets killed, Chester turns on the TV and what is he watching? The original film! How the hell is this supposed to be a sequel if it makes the original just a movie? People complain about a similar scene in Halloween III: Season of the Witch where an advertisement for the original Halloween is shown playing on a TV. But here's the thing: that movie takes place in a completely different continuity than the films that preceded it and has nothing to do with the plot or characters, so it's acceptable. This is supposed to be a sequel to The Blob but it apparently isn't. Why even market is as a sequel if you're just going to relegate the original to being just a movie after all? I can't follow the logic behind that.
Speaking of which, here's, supposedly, how this film came about: Jack H. Harris, the producer of the original, had wanted to do a sequel for a long time but for various reasons, it was constantly delayed. Larry Hagman, who was best known at that time for his role in I Dream of Jeannie, happened to lived next door to him. Harris showed him the original film and Hagman expressed an interest in directing a sequel. Purportedly, Hagman was stoned throughout the making of this film, which I can believe, and most of the dialogue was improvised. And as many know, when Hagman later became famous in Dallas, this movie was actually re-released with the tagline, "The movie J.R. shot!" I'm sure that Hagman is embarrassed by this movie to this day and if he isn't, he should be. (Note: all the information above comes from IMDB and Wikipedia, so I can't clarify their authenticity.)
The special effects for the blob are downright sloppy in this movie. People feel the effects in the original are primitive but these effects make those look like Star Wars. The blob itself is nowhere near as uniform and solid a mass as it was in the original. It looks like they used red silly putty instead of silicone. When the blob drops down off the counter after it's thawed, it's obvious that somebody just flung a big glop of the stuff on the floor from off-screen. Other times, it looks like red-colored pudding or even just water. At one point, the blob is clearly just a big red balloon. It's quick but if you look, you can tell. It doesn't even feel as alive as it did before. There are some effects that manage to rather eerie, like the blob swallowing a housefly when it's first thawed, the rather horrific instance when it eats a kitten, and the disturbing image of it crawling up a woman's legs. But for the most part, it's obvious that this is a low budget movie with hardly any care for special effects.
This movie just doesn't cut it. It's cheap, it's stupid, and it has none of the charm or heart of the original. I wondered how Jack H. Harris reacted when he saw the finished film? However, he would later go on to produce the awesome 1988 remake, which we'll talk about next. Bottom line, I recommend seeing the original and the remake and leaving this movie right where it belongs: the trash.
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