The Blob (1988)

Chuck Russell, who was riding off the success of A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, decided to remake the  1958 Monster Movie The Blob, Starring a young Steve McQueen, 30 years later. The Result: Fan-fucking-tastic!
But before I get to this review, let me give a quick overview of the original..... it's so boring! It's so boring, you guys. And I'm not saying this because I'm young and therefore not up to par with classic movies, I happen to enjoy classic movies, however the 1958 version I couldn't be invested in. Everything about the movie was bland. The acting, the characters, the writing, and all the way down to the directing and special effects. I think in my case, the movie is only remembered because it was Steve McQueeen's first major role and nothing else. So this definitely needed to be remade and it was only a matter of time during the 80's, which was the golden age of Sci-fi, where this could happen.
The Story: On a typical day in a small idyllic town, strange event occurs. A meteor suddenly falls from the sky. Once the town drunk takes a hold of this, a glob of goo attacks his hand. Meanwhile, likeable jock Paul and innocent cheerleader Meg is on a date when they suddenly encounter the homeless man, desperate for their aid, along with resident rebel Brian who also helps. While in the hospital, Paul checks on the ailing man, only to see the blob devouring his first victim, getting bigger and bigger, eating anyone who comes towards it's path.....

The characters are just awesome in this film. While the original had your stereotypical 1950's teenagers, the 80's version already have the characters fleshed out, we already know them well, and we already CARE about them. just enough time and care put into this movie.

Let's start with Brian Flagg and his luxurious hair played by sexy Kevin Dillion. Brain is your typical rebel without a cause, at first. You would never expect a character like this to be a hero, but the presence of Kevin Dillion, with his charming loveable rouge attitude makes you root for the character. And that's what I like about this movie, it's not just the character development that fleshes the characters out, it's the acting as well.

Speaking of good actors, Shawnee Smith is full of pure awesome along with the character Meg Penny who is incredibly badass. She starts off as your typical happy-go-lucky cheerleader but as the movie progresses, we can see that she is an intelligent, resourceful, strong-willed, and all around kickass girl.

It is SHE who defeats the blob. Yes guys, it's the cheerleader who saves the world and this was way before Buffy came along as a butt-kicking cheerleader. How awesome is that! This was the Post-Ripley era where more female characters in horror/action movies take charge and fight to the finish which was why I was so enthralled by Shawnee Smith's performance. She is definitely an underrated Scream Queen alongside Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis.

And lastly we have nice jock Paul played by the dreamy Donavan Leitch. He's nice, helpful, upstanding, mild-mannered and all around perfect boyfriend. It seem he might be the hero of the movie but I was in for a big shock when he went out in the most gruesome of ways. This is when it shifts to Brain as our main hero, who turns out to be very effective as a strong male lead.

Along with Meg, which they both make a very effective action couple.

So it leads me to this:

 

Who Would You Rather: Brian or Paul? Well, of course, I would Choose Brain, at least he doesn't get killed in the first 15 minutes and who could resist that gorgeous hair and that bad boy swag.

 

 

The one thing that brings much more to the story and how it keep things interesting, is that the blob isn't the only antagonist of the film. There is the leader of this science project group who intently cause the man-eating blob to land on earth just so he can get his greedy hands on his next experiment, quarantining the whole town and putting them in danger. Then there's the town priest who has turned crazy from the experience and has kept a little piece of the blob, still forming in a jar at the end of the movie. As in the 1958 version, the blob came out of nowhere, with no sense of how and why it crashed on earth.

The special effects, which were inspired by The Thing, another 80's remake from 1950's monster movie, are NASTY. There are so many ideas and creative choices done with the blob monster and how it devours it's victims is probably some of the most goriest things I've seen a movie. Where as the deaths were off screen in the original, you get to see the deaths in plain view in the remake. The filmmakers even takes the risk of killing off a child onscreen, which was totally unexpected, giving the 'anybody could die' motif, which always works in horror films in my opinion.

And yes there were moments that were actually suspenseful and where I was truly scared for the characters. As for the original, it lacked any suspense and I just kept waiting, impatiently, for something to happen.
Chuck Russell surprised me again with his strong directing skills, putting in much effort with the special effects and more intense action scenes. To be honest, I think HE would've been the right choice to direct A Nightmare On Elm Street 4, but seeing that he put his passion into all of this, it's worthwhile.
The Verdict? Go for the remake. It's much more fast-paced, the characters are interesting, there is actual action and suspense and plus much better special effects. Enjoy this while you can.
My last word: Go watch the remake. Like right now!



The Thing With Remakes

I meant to make this a short overview but somehow this turned out to be a rant/discussion instead. There have been a slew of remakes lately and it's gotten kind of out of control almost like it's a marketing ploy. It 's been a hit or miss in some movies, however it's been mostly a miss. Statistics show that Hollywood since the coming decade has literally run out of original ideas. This isn't always the case all the time but, trust me you guys, compare to the horror movies or movies in general back in the 70's, 80's, and 90's and the movies of modern times. Without a doubt, there is just no original ideas that pop out anymore. No movies that pop out or stand the test of time. I know I'm being a little overdramatic, however, it's only my opinion. There are some movies that heighten our expectations  though you get your occasional remake, reboot, re-imagining, re-do, redux, it never ends. This have been trending since the 90's and I am a firm lover of the 90's though that's not really the issue. People will eventually keep making remakes whether it's necessary or not(like the recent re-do of Poltergeist I might add). The problem is the people behind the movies don't put any sort of thought or passion into the project or any respect for the original. I feel like if the filmmakers doesn't know what they're doing, what's the point of remaking the film at all. If somebody took the time to re-evaluate what was missing from the original and put on a new perspective on the new material, I'll probably give a lot of respect towards that filmmaker. I want to keep this short and simple because I know I have a lot of remakes to review though since there are so many I can only review a quarter amount that I have which is about 18 or so and that's a lot. And maybe in the future, I can make a vol.2 to this.
So that's pretty much all my venting into this whole remake phenomenon. And I'll be sure to hope to go on with the reviews as much as I can, this isn't an easy task. So wish me luck!

Showgirls Part 3

So this is when things get a little crazy, fucked-up, and dark. It was all campy, sexual fun but now things are going to get serious.

 

So Nomi is invited to this party hosted by Andrew Carver, a Michael Bolton-type singer that Molly gushes over. As an apology, Nomi invites her over and she is easily forgiven. Molly is then given the chance to meet her idol for the very first time....This wasn't such a good idea. Even beforehand, Nomi should've saw the warning signs when this guy turned out to be a creep when he made a comment about her breasts. But this is worse than that....way worse. Molly is brutally beaten and raped by him and his security guards, which is the way for this film to up the ante on the NC-17 rating to throw a little violence along with sex. really? Why did it have to come to this? It's disgusting and repulsive. Why can't this movie be fun, stupid and campy, why did they have to go this far?
So once Nomi comes to the knowledge of this, she tries to call the authorities but Zach stops her for some reason, gloating that he knows about her seedy past and rubs it in her face. Nomi, did you seriously think it was a good idea to sleep with this guy? She responds by spitting him in the face but a punch to the face would've been more acceptable. Okay, so let me get this straight. Her friend was brutally raped and she can't call the authorities because this floppy-haired dickweed said so? What does he own? all of Las Vegas or something? I don't care if this Andrew Carver guy is a celebrity or whatever, he still did a terrible crime and plus everybody at the party witnessed Molly falling unconscious and battered. How much evidence is that?

But anywho, Nomi takes the law into her own hands and decides to beat the living shit out of Andrew Carver. Like that is going to solve anything. You should've frame the fucker that's what you should've done. But this of course is treated as the film's climax.


And Nomi just had about enough of Las Vegas. So she pays Molly a visit as well as Cristal. But Cristal wants something that she never had. To kiss Nomi's lips one last time. I guess this is supposed to be treated as romantic.

So off Nomi goes and here she runs into the guy who ran off with her suitcase. So she flicks her knife, Orders her suitcase back, and off they go to Los Angles.
Wow what a trashy pile of gloriousness....

Let's just be honest people, Elizabeth Berkely is just not a good actress, I was puzzled as to why she was given the leading role in the first place. She is mostly remembered for this movie but for all the wrong reasons. Which is why she is stuck writing self-help books and doing TV work. Best fit to be honest. I also didn't get Nomi Malone as a character. The movie just didn't know what to do with her. They try to paint her as this street-smart kind of gal but occasionally make her into this naïve ingénue at the same time. That's not always a problem but the stuff that she does is questionable. She knows but she doesn't know. And the movie doesn't do a good job at making her this good person who suddenly do bad things to get to the top because quite frankly we don't know anything about her.

Gina Gershon is probably the only shining beacon in this movie and is solely the reason why I watched through all of it. Her character may be a bit of bitch but that's what she's good at playing.
Now let's get to the Nitty Gritty. The blatant misogyny of the film is too much to handle. Almost all of the men in this movie are slimeballs and what makes it worse is that it's written and directed by men. And the rape scene puts more salt into the wound, making me feel even dirtier for watching this film.
So that's Showgirls. I still wouldn't rank it as one of my top guiltiest pleasures but if it's on cable on a boring Saturday night, I'll probably give it watch. After all it's faults, it's still kind of entertaining.

Now a clip show: