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In keeping with its vexing nature, the daunting task of bringing a sentient pile of space goo to life frequently eluded the filmmakers. The stratified teams worked out of a former auto-repair shop, aptly re-christened “The Blob Shop.”
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The Blob was realized through the combined efforts of creature effects coordinators Lyle Conway and Stuart Ziff, and makeup effects wunderkind Tony Garnder (“ I lied and said I was 25“), with post-production opticals and miniature work by Greg Jein, Dream Quest, and All Effects. Puppeteered silk blankets injected with a common food thickener. But how do you build a creature like the Blob? And how do you control something that unwieldy? It moves up walls, across ceilings, and through sewers, like it has a mind of its own, oozing in different directions, pulsating, and flowing with terrifying ease. Unlike its 1958 predecessor, this Blob is fast. As a result: the Blob itself is a brain-buster to look at. Made right on the cusp of the CGI takeover, The Blob is a snapshot of a high watermark of practical creature effects-work. Indeed, as much as I will vouch for the film’s underappreciated charms, the reason The Blob has survived all these years is its effects. It certainly helped that The Blob has one of the most horrifying VHS covers of all time. (Shadowy governments sacrificing a handful of innocents to save face? Why does that sound familiar?).īy Russell’s own admission, The Blob didn’t get a proper shot during its theatrical run: “It was released late in a very hectic summer filled with big films,” he says, “and it didn’t have a particularly good ad campaign.” Thankfully The Blob took on a new life in the era of home video. But I do think Russell and Frank Darabont’s sharp script is under-praised, efficient, and more subversive than folks give it credit for. I’m not going to argue that Russell’s remake is of the same caliber as Kaufman’s, Carpenter’s, or Cronenberg’s. Indeed, historically, the remake of The Blob has had a bad rap: “Needless, if undeniably gooey,” Leonard Martin put it. It’s campy, comedic, and has a lighter spring in its step. The 1988 version of The Blob retains more of its B-movie roots than the aforementioned auteur-driven efforts. And as far as ’80s slime goes, they don’t get much slimier than Chuck Russell‘s The Blob, a sci-fi horror-comedy about a meteorite-hopping pile of goop wreaking havoc on a small California ski town.ĭespite being a body horror remake of a 1950s classic, The Blob is rarely mentioned in the same breath as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, and The Fly. Viscous, visceral, and virtually everywhere, slime was a cost-effective way to enhance creature effects and convey a horrifying sense of tactility.
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The texture of horror films in the 1980s was goop. This entry looks into the making of The Blob.
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Welcome to How’d They Do That? - a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off.