Blob, The

Rating: ***/*****, or 6/10

Odd mix of horror and juvenile delinquency films launched the brilliant career of the noted actor Steve McQueen (The Great Escape, The Towering Inferno). When a bizarre lifeform lands on Earth and starts devouring all life it comes in contact with, growing ever bigger in the process, Steve and his girl, along with their buddies and the police, must find a way to stop it. Quite the potential for great horror here (something the eighties' remake realized full well, considering just how insanely gorier it was), but unfortunately this was ignored in favor of scenes involving teens cruising around in their cars and playing loud music, which made it a hit with the kids of the day (something the studio hoped for, which is why the movie was made in colour). In fact, the film's  catchy but obnoxious opening music became a smash hit. It spawned a completely useless and campy sequel in 1972, titled Beware! The Blob. This movie, despite being plain silly, retains a charm and a cult following all its own.

Starring: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe

Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.

USA: Fairview Productions, 1958

Blob, The (1988)

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

This remake of the 1958 original film is less of a mixed bag genre wise and more of a straightforward horror film: the abundance of gore makes it clear it has no pretensions to be anything else. An gelatinous alien organism lands on Earth in a small American town and starts devouring its inhabitants, quickly increasing in mass until little escape seems possible for the remaining survivors, who also find themselves confronted with a secret government agency intent on capturing the life form for its own shady purposes. Several teenagers must try to evade both these sinister agents and the hungry entity itself to stay alive, in the classic eighties horror tradition. If you can stand the goriness of people being consumed alive, you might find this a fun though otherwise unremarkable decent horror flick. However, the typical love triangle between teenagers present in this film can cause some irritation. At least you won't end up with a very annoying theme song stuck in your head as you would have in 1958.

Starring: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch

Directed by Chuck Russell

USA: TriStar Pictures, 1988