Yours portly has had very little time for watching flicks lately, but I managed to squeeze in the 1988 remake of The Blob.  It and the 1958 original are both films I’ve known about my entire life, but I have never seen either of the flicks.  I think an episode of Muppet Babies featured clips of the titular creature from the 1988 film, so I had a good image of the pink, oozing goo from my early childhood, but otherwise all I knew about either films was that they involved a gelatinous, amorphous entity absorbing people lethally.

Naturally, the 1988 version frames the gooey menace as a Cold War biological weapon gone wrong, rather than a Cold War alien invasion.  A trio of teenagers—Paul, Brian, and Meg—face off against the creature, although Paul succumbs to its protean appetite early in the film.  That leaves the cool outsider Brian and the cheerleader Meg to form an unlikely alliance—and romance—to defeat The Blob, as well as to convince the authorities that it exists!

Like all such creature features, The Blob has a signature weakness—the cold.  The film sets this weakness up well, as Brian and Meg take refuge in a diner’s deep freeze, where The Blob is unable to extend its slimy tendrils.  That knowledge will arm the teens to take down the creature later in the film.

There’s also a fantastic scene in which a packed theater watches some manner of B-movie slasher flick, with The Blob exploding into the cinema to feast upon the audience members.  Two little kids have snuck into the film, and Meg manages to rescue them.  There’s just something terrifying about some hideous monster diving into a theater full of popcorn and people.

Apparently, the reception at the time of its release was not very good, and The Blob was a box office flop.  However, its legacy has improved, and there’s no denying that the clever practical effects—which are quite stunning and impressive—are iconic.  That sloughing, gooey, Pepto-Bismol monster is too good.

The Blob is not the best creature feature I’ve ever seen, but I enjoyed it.  It won’t win any awards for acting or originality, but it’s a competent and fun remake.