Night of Terror #30: The Blob

Monster movies are certainly one of the most popular subsets of scary movies, especially around Halloween. But since the 1950s, the monster movie has been replaced by stuff like psycho killers, zombies, and other more down-to-Earth threats. Nowadays it's rare to see a monster movie at all, let alone one that's actually scary.

Which brings us to The Blob, the rare remake that manages to get everything right about the original while adding its own juju to the mix, justifying its own existence and giving audiences a reason to sit through a movie starring The Lesser Dillon. It nails the almost quaint atmosphere of classic 50s monster movies (The Blob included), while adding a genuinely dark and scary world in which the audience is never sure who will live and who will die - some characters who seem set up to "deserve" death get got, sure, but so do plenty of people who would seem like sure survivors in a more conventional horror movie.

There are also those special effects, which rival the ones in John Carpenter's The Thing in the bloody-oozing-bone-cracking-guts department. Some of the scenes of the titular blob oozing all over the city aren't quite up to that gold standard, but you know what? I don't care that much.

Anyway, The Blob is a surprisingly good movie, with a lot of great blobby action and some genuine scares. If only there were a holiday specifically for that sort of thing ... ah well, there's always Christmas.