The Blob (1958) Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland Movie Review

The Blob (1958)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Steve McQueen in The Blob (1958)

Extinguish the Creep

Having taken Jane (Aneta Corsaut) up to the make out point under the pretence you can see shooting stars there, Steve (Steve McQueen) and Janet find themselves heading to where something fell from the sky only to end up being up a hysterical man with some sort of lesion on his hand. Taking him to the doctor things start to spiral out of control when the pulsating blob on the man's hand not only assimilates him but goes after the doctor and his nurse. Now Steve, Janet and the local police find themselves trying to get to the bottom of what is going on whilst finding a way to stop this blob as it gets bigger and bigger.

I don't know what it is about "The Blob" but it seems that almost everyone who sees it not only remembers it but has a fondness for it. For me I remember seeing it back in the 80s as a teen and I only saw a bit of it but it stuck with me and I remember enjoying it. It must be 30 years since I saw a bit of it and yet I have longed to watch it again and I wasn't disappointed. Yet what shocks me is that it is a movie full of poor edits, hesitation, stereotypical characters and over the top performances yet it is enjoyable.

Now "The Blob" for those who have never seen it is an easy movie to explain as we have a strange blob which engulfs people and grows whilst Steve and Janet find the police disbelieving of them which means Steve and Janet find themselves alone trying to get to the bottom of things and of course saving the day when things go bad. It is incredibly typical and as I said it has a distinct b-movie feel to it from editing pauses to actors struggling with lines, yet it is infectiously entertaining and even when you know how the movie plays out you still keep on watching because the whole thing is just entertaining.

There is for me one reason why "The Blob" works and it is down to it starring a youthful looking Steve McQueen. The thing is that McQueen like the rest of the cast often seems to struggle with the dialogue yet thanks to the career he had after this you almost don't care about the issues because he as cool in this as he was in so many of his movies,

What this all boils down to is that "The Blob" was never a great movie but it has always been great entertainment with even those bad b-movie elements ending up a huge part of what makes it fun.


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