No One is Safe

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 The Blob (1988)

Written by Caleb Madden

B-MOVIES!!! I honestly haven’t really dug into B movies (no matter how much my father thinks Terrence Malick movies are B-movies). But after watching The Blob (1988) I think I will be adding them into my regular rotation for movie nights.

Let’s talk about why!

Brian Flagg

A remake of the 1958 movie of the same title, The Blob (1988) follows the story of an alien ooze substance that crashes down to earth in a meteor and starts eating every living creature it finds. It sounds kinda stupid and to be honest it is, but I also kinda love it. 

Everything about this movie screams late 80’s but not in a tropey way like Stranger Things.

No, it's just that the people who made this movie clearly wanted to make something they thought would be cool, and it's firmly planted in the late 80s. One of the main characters in the movie rides a motorcycle, exclusively wears a leather jacket, and is named “Brian Flagg.” If that’s not some crazy 80s American shit I don’t know what is. 

No One is Safe

The other thing that I LOVE about this movie is the deaths. I know that sounds morbid but let me explain. This movie holds NO punches. In the first 30 minutes one of our main characters is killed off. And not just, like, killed off screen. I mean we watch him get his face completely melted by the blob while his girlfriend watches in terror. This specific death causes a total role reversal in the movie and honestly subverted my expectations quite a bit. 

 This early major death also cues the audience that no one and I mean no one is safe in this movie. There is not a single character in this movie that you know for sure is going to live. There are characters that are given story beats and plot all for them to get horrifyingly murdered a few minutes later. This allows the movie to feel genuinely thrilling. There is no telling who is going to die or if the blob is going to win the whole movie. I love it. 

Camp and the Military Industrial Complex

The last thing I will say about this movie is that it is wildly campy, which is to be expected, but that’s part of the fun. And I find it to be good camp. Often I feel that the campiness we so often see just consists of men’s rights activists male leads and screaming women. This movie manages to skirt that trope and actually deliver some decent performances.

I also love how much government hate is in this movie. I don’t hate the government, but this feels distinctly late 80s as well. All of this fear that the government will do whatever it takes to defeat Russia, even kill its own people, is just fun and terrifying.

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