Beware! Beware! The Blob / Son of Blob
I recently noted my interest in movies about blobs, and my intention to rectify a gap in my movie-watching history by using Netflix to rent the sequel to the 1958 movie The Blob, the 1972 (though the small text at the bottom of the title says 1971 in Roman numerals) movie alternately titled Beware! The Blob, Beware the Blob, Son of Blob and The Blob Returns.
I have done so.
Gentle Reader, beware. Beware!
I knew it was going to be a lousy movie, but I didn't think that it was going to be that lousy of a movie. My youngest and I barely stayed awake through the damn thing.
Not only were the acting (despite appearances by Burgess Meredith, Godfrey Cambridge, Carol Lynley, Gerrit Graham, Shelley Berman, Randy Stonehill, Cindy Williams [American Graffiti; The Conversation; Laverne and Shirley], Robert Walker, Jr. [ he played the titular role in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Charlie X"], Richard Webb [Out of the Past; I Was a Communist for the FBI; Captain Midnight; he later wrote four books on psychic phenomena], Del Close [who had a pivotal role in the 1988 remake of The Blob], Dick Van Patten [Eight Is Enough], former pro-wrestler Tiger Joe Marsh [his character is listed as "The Naked Turk" on IMDB], and, in a cameo, director Larry Hagman himself) and dialogue worse than the 1958 original's; the special effects were worse. Much worse.
I was prepared to see the Blob get jump-started by eating first a house fly and then a kitten; I wasn't prepared to see the actress who handled the kitten, Marlene Clark, come across as though she'd never touched a cat in her life, never mind picked one up. That's not how you hold a kitten!
Having said that, I've still seen movies that were worse than even Beware! The Blob; The Creeping Terror (a.k.a. The Crawling Monster) leaps to mind. But I disliked Beware! The Blob far more than the Howard the Duck movie, which probably says more about my personality and critical acumen than I'd like.
It occurs to me that I omitted one blob movie from my list: Larry Cohen's 1985 consumerist "satire" The Stuff, a film that I went to considerable trouble and expense to see in the theatre when it was in limited release. (I would subsequently be shocked and scandalized by the positive review it garnered in the compilation of smarty-pants British movie criticism that was Film Yearbook: 1986. I'm still not convinced that the thumbs-up given to The Stuff wasn't some kind of twisted joke on the part of those boffins. Has Larry Cohen ever written or directed a good movie -- ever? Even God Told Me To, the only thing of his that I've seen that might be called, at a stretch, "good," was pretty inept and underwhelming.) The photo in my user icon for this post is taken from it (and was printed in the aforementioned volume of Film Yearbook); it shows the character played by original Saturday Night Live cast member Garrett Morris meeting a richly deserved end, courtesy of The Stuff.
On an unrelated note: Happy Sweetest Day, for those who celebrate / observe that regional, notional consumerist holiday (which was yesterday: Saturday, 20 October), a sort-of "Valentine's Day, Jr."; it has some personal significance to Casa de Uvula, since the first date that my wife and I went on ended on Sweetest Day, at roughly 4 a.m.
I have done so.
Gentle Reader, beware. Beware!
I knew it was going to be a lousy movie, but I didn't think that it was going to be that lousy of a movie. My youngest and I barely stayed awake through the damn thing.
Not only were the acting (despite appearances by Burgess Meredith, Godfrey Cambridge, Carol Lynley, Gerrit Graham, Shelley Berman, Randy Stonehill, Cindy Williams [American Graffiti; The Conversation; Laverne and Shirley], Robert Walker, Jr. [ he played the titular role in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Charlie X"], Richard Webb [Out of the Past; I Was a Communist for the FBI; Captain Midnight; he later wrote four books on psychic phenomena], Del Close [who had a pivotal role in the 1988 remake of The Blob], Dick Van Patten [Eight Is Enough], former pro-wrestler Tiger Joe Marsh [his character is listed as "The Naked Turk" on IMDB], and, in a cameo, director Larry Hagman himself) and dialogue worse than the 1958 original's; the special effects were worse. Much worse.
I was prepared to see the Blob get jump-started by eating first a house fly and then a kitten; I wasn't prepared to see the actress who handled the kitten, Marlene Clark, come across as though she'd never touched a cat in her life, never mind picked one up. That's not how you hold a kitten!
Having said that, I've still seen movies that were worse than even Beware! The Blob; The Creeping Terror (a.k.a. The Crawling Monster) leaps to mind. But I disliked Beware! The Blob far more than the Howard the Duck movie, which probably says more about my personality and critical acumen than I'd like.
It occurs to me that I omitted one blob movie from my list: Larry Cohen's 1985 consumerist "satire" The Stuff, a film that I went to considerable trouble and expense to see in the theatre when it was in limited release. (I would subsequently be shocked and scandalized by the positive review it garnered in the compilation of smarty-pants British movie criticism that was Film Yearbook: 1986. I'm still not convinced that the thumbs-up given to The Stuff wasn't some kind of twisted joke on the part of those boffins. Has Larry Cohen ever written or directed a good movie -- ever? Even God Told Me To, the only thing of his that I've seen that might be called, at a stretch, "good," was pretty inept and underwhelming.) The photo in my user icon for this post is taken from it (and was printed in the aforementioned volume of Film Yearbook); it shows the character played by original Saturday Night Live cast member Garrett Morris meeting a richly deserved end, courtesy of The Stuff.
On an unrelated note: Happy Sweetest Day, for those who celebrate / observe that regional, notional consumerist holiday (which was yesterday: Saturday, 20 October), a sort-of "Valentine's Day, Jr."; it has some personal significance to Casa de Uvula, since the first date that my wife and I went on ended on Sweetest Day, at roughly 4 a.m.