If there’s one distinctive feature of the horror icon the Blob, it’s the fact that it is a completely shapeless creature. No matter what incarnation you’re looking at, it’s always a mean living pile of Jell-O, oozing into every corner to get to that tasty human flesh. The director of the upcoming remake has now vowed to change the Blob’s very concept.
In fact, Simon West (who directed the chest hair classic Con Air) tells ScreenRelish that the creature will finally have a shape, unlike its predecessors. He names Alien and Predator, although it’s a little bit unclear whether he means their rather humanoid shapes or only means to compare the tone of his remake to their original movies by Ridley Scott and John McTiernan.
“It’s going to be much more sci-fi than the original. It’s a bigger scale type of movie. It’s more ALIEN meets PREDATOR and designing the creature is a long and involved process cause its very sophisticated. It’s not going to be the goo pouring through windows.”
There have been three Blob movies so far: the black and white cheese classic The Blob (1958), starring Steve McQueen, Beware! The Blob (1972), a terrible sequel directed by… Larry Hagman and a fun first remake, The Blob (1986), written by three-time Academy Award nominee Frank Darabont. You should definitely check that last one out, and should you assume the Blob being lame in concept, wait until you see it sucking people down sinks. West picked up remake duties when Rob Zombie lost interest. Although he is mostly known for action movies, it won’t be his first horror remake. He also directed the forgettable When a Stranger Calls remake in 2006.
As for the Blob getting re-designed, maybe they’re doing The Incredible Melting Man on a larger scale. That 70s movie had an astronaut getting exposed to an alien radiation, then slowly dissolving. In order to keep the melting in check he had to attack and eat people. Imagine this in World War Z dimensions in 3D IMAX with some gooey tentacle action, and it might be real fun. Still, it’s strange to see Simon West attached to this. There’s no F/X heavy movie in his filmography and the Blob is all of that.
What do you guys think? Any idea how the Blob could be interesting again?