The Blob was a successful monster movie from the late 50's and no one suspected it mild yield a sequel until Larry Hagman (yes THAT Larry Hagman) thought it might be a grand notion. He lived in the Malibu Colony, a high-rent collection of homes belonging to a gaggle of folks, many in the film industry. So Hagman looking for a gig after I Dream of Jeanie came to a close chatted up his chums and they made a movie. Beware! The Blob or as it was otherwise known Son of Blob is a monster movie with a decided difference, a light breezy tone. I saw it once on TV years ago, but only once.
Like the original movie, the sequel focuses its attention on two young people who are the first to encounter the threat, at least the to encounter it and survive. Godfrey Cambridge is the culprit who unwittingly brought back with him from the frozen north a specimen which required freezing. It of course thaws and the Blob is back to its old tricks of rolling around and absorbing animals and people. Like the original the youngsters are seen as the problem for a long time before the true threat is fully understood and the town's forces are marshaled against it.
This is a fun movie and at many junctures quite funny. Burgess Meredith plays one of a trio of hobos who fall victim to the Blob and they are quite humorous (Hagman is a mute part of this trio). Shelley Berman apparently runs an all-night barbershop and that makes him vulnerable. There's quite a bit of humor in the movie, which it could be argued undercuts the tension, but really by 1972 monster movies needed more juice than the Blob could provide to really give folks a chill. (The later 80's remake of The Blob did find some ways to make the threat feel more palpable.) But this is still a fun movie and I'm glad to get to see it again after quite a long time.
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It was fun, but the best thing about this sequel was that it gave us lyrics to the theme music. That song still runs in my head decades later. "Beware of the Blob! It Creeps! and Leaps! and Glides! and slides across the floor..."
ReplyDelete(And - how do you 'pop' when singing it? Finger from inside the mouth or flat hand from outside or ...?)
I know the song was written back in 1958 (co-written by Burt Bacharach!), but Beware put the lyrics up in the front title sequence and, like the rest of the movie, had fun with it.
I haven't seen it in this century. I guess it's about time.
It holds up quite well for its time, which produced a number of flicks which creak these days. Now I've got that song in my head...thanks a heap.
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