The Blob | 80's Movie Guide

Taglines: Terror has no shape. The Blob movie synopsis. A meteorite crashes near Arborville, California. An elderly transient discovers, within the sphere, a slime mold-like substance (the Blob) that attaches itself to his hand. Three high school students, Brian, Meg and Paul, take him to a hospital. After Brian leaves, Paul witnesses the lower half of the transient melting from exposure to the Blob. As he calls for help, the Blob drops on top of him and begins to devour him. While Meg tries to free him, his arm dissolves off, Meg is thrown against a wall and knocked unconscious, and the Blob oozes out of the hospital. After Brian and Meg have unsatisfactory encounters with the police, they meet at a diner where Meg tells Brian about the Blob. Brian is initially skeptical of Meg's story, but is convinced otherwise when the diner's handyman, George, is pulled head first through the sink drain by the Blob. It pursues them to the diner's walk-in freezer, but the Blob suddenly retreats after entering the freezer. After consuming the diner's owner, Fran Hewitt, the Blob reenters the sewers. Reverend Jacob Meeker, after witnessing the Blob disappearing and investigating the dark and abandoned diner, discovers and collects frozen fragments of the Blob near the open freezer door. Meg and Brian return to the police station, where the dispatcher tells them Deputy Briggs is near the meteor-landing site. They discover a military operation led by a scientist, Dr. Meddows, who orders the town quarantined. Brian escapes a military van and collects his motorbike. Meg is taken to town where she learns her younger brother, Kevin, and his friend, Eddie, have sneaked into the local movie theater. The Blob enters the theater and attacks the staff and then the audience. Meg arrives as the audience is fleeing the theater, rescuing Eddie and Kevin. Brian eavesdrops on Meddows and learns that the Blob is a biological warfare experiment created during the Cold War that was launched into space because it was so dangerous. Learning that the Blob has entered the sewers, Meddows decide to trap it there, even if that means allowing Meg, Kevin, and Eddie to die. Brian is discovered listening in and evades military personnel by driving his motorcycle into the sewers. In the sewers, Meg and Kevin flee from the Blob when it emerges and devours Eddie. Kevin escapes to the surface by scaling a pipe and squeezing through a grate. A three-man team of soldiers find Meg with the Blob and unsuccessfully attempt to kill it. Meg is saved by Brian, and they ride away on his motorcycle through a tunnel until they crash. They run into the only surviving soldier of the three-man team, and they escape the sewer after Meddows unsuccessfully attempts to trap them with the Blob. Brian confronts Meddows in front of the townsfolk and Deputy Briggs. After failing to convince everyone Brian is contaminated and must die, Meddows attempts to shoot Brian, but is killed by the Blob as it oozes into his chemical suit and drags him into the sewer. Col. Hargis, second in command after Meddows, attempts to destroy the Blob by shooting it to death and blowing it up with a bomb, but this only succeeds in angering it. The enraged creature bursts out of the ground and kills Hargis before it feasts upon the population and soldiers, impervious to the military's attempts to stop it. The town's Reverend Meeker proclaims the scene to be the prophesied end of the world, after which a failed flamethrower attack on the Blob sets him ablaze. Meg saves him with a fire extinguisher, and in the process blasts the Blob with it. As the monster recoils from the spray, Meg realizes that it cannot tolerate cold. The Blob is a 1988 science-fiction horror film written and directed by Chuck Russell, co-written with Frank Darabont, and starring Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch, Jeffrey DeMunn, Candy Clark and Joe Seneca. The film's title depicts an amorphous acidic amoeba-like organism that eats and dissolves anything in its path as it grows, where it begins to feed on the residents of the fictional town of Arborville, California. As a remake of the 1958 horror film of the same name, the film was theatrically released in 1988, but it was a box office flop, earning $8.2 million. Despite a mixed to positive reception, praise was heavily regarding the special-effects. Much like the original film, the remake has since gained a cult following and some consider the film to be one of the best remakes ever made. The Blob (1988) Directed by: Chuck Russell Starring: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch, Jeffrey DeMunn, Candy Clark, Joe Seneca, Del Close, Paul McCrane, Sharon Spelman Screenplay by: Chuck Russell, Frank Darabont Production Design by: Craig Stearns Cinematography by: Mark Irwin Film Editing by: Tod Feuerman, Terry Stokes Costume Design by: Joseph A. Porro Set Decoration by: Anne H. Ahrens Art Direction by: Jeff Ginn Music by: Michael Hoenig Distributed by: TriStar Pictures Release Date: August 5, 1988