| Review by Jim |
| Plot: As a quaint little town gears up for football and ski season, a meteor crashes in its outskirts. What's inside the meteor is a pink goo that consumes anyone it comes in contact with and turns them into melted chunks of flesh. Now it's up to the local bad boy and the school's most popular cheerleader to put this fucker on ice. Review: 1988's The Blob is just another piece of evidence that remakes can in fact be better than the original. John Carpenter's The Thing, The Fly with Jeff Goldblum, and this movie prove that a remake can be better than a beloved classic. Why? I say because each of these remakes has taken the original concept many steps further, plus it doesn't hurt that the 1958's The Blob was pretty damn bad. I know it's considered a camp classic in some circles, but for me it was goddamned painful. It was like being on one of those long car trips where you have to take a piss so bad that your bladder will erupt any second yet there's no place to turn off. In any case, this remake is leagues better than the original in pretty much every area. First off, the remake has some honest to God horror elements and doesn't skimp out on the gore for one second. Whenever someone kicks the bucket, they do so with gusto. Case in point, an old guy's torso melts right off (reminds me of pasta), and that's just a sample. You'd think after seeing one guy get melted by the blob you've seen 'em all, but the makers manage to keep each kill fresh and unique, though, the gorefest slows down during the finale of the movie. For the most part, the special effects are pretty damn convincing and innovative, but they're still a few pegs short of what you'd find in John Carpenter's The Thing. There were some times in the movie when I was yelling "blue screen," for example the first chase scene with the blob that ends up in the freezer. Of course, there's not actually much tension since we can spot a kill coming a mile away. Two teens parked in the woods, a guy putting his arm down a drain, and so on and so forth. These people aren't exactly brain surgeons or breaking the mold of horror victims, but as long as I get to see the plasma flow I'm happy. Another plus that worked in the movie's favor was that the blob had a much stronger story of its origin. Instead of just being some creature from space, the blob is actually a germ warfare agent created by the government. You'd think they'd have some kind of contingency plan or know the blob's weakness since they made the goddamn thing, but they don't. Needless to say, they're meat. The remake is also much darker than the original and while it's generally a B-horror movie, it never really sets itself up for additional mockery. It tries to minimize the corniness, which they do a pretty good job of considering the movie's about a giant piece of pink goo. The characters we don't really care about, but then again, do we ever in these kinds of movies? Kevin Dillon plays the teenage outcast and bad boy in the movie, but he hardly comes off as that. What makes him so bad? The fact that he wears a leather jacket, rides a motorcycle, and has an unconvincing New Yorker accent? And on top of all this there's that ridiculous-looking mop of '80s feathered hair he has. He's about as bad as a jaywalker. The other main character is the school's most popular cheerleader and all-around nice girl Meg. She manages to be more convincing than Dillon, but not by much. In the end, The Blob remake is a solid and enjoyable horror movie with enough gore for the whole family, though, you will have to sit through the usual teen stereotypes and subpar acting, but for all that you get a pretty decent horror movie in my opinion. Then again, it wouldn't take much to beat out the original, would it? Granted I didn't give two shits about who survived and who was blob food, but the remake has enough horror elements and good 'n' graphic special effects to be a worthwhile viewing. |
| Rating: *** |
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