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Film: Beware! The Blob
Year: 1972
Director: Larry Hagman
Writer: Jack Woods and Anthony Harris
Starring: Robert Walker Jr., Gwynne Gilford and Richard Stahl
Review:
This sequel to the classic film was one that I originally watched in college. I hadn’t seen it since then so I decided to give it a rewatch. The official synopsis is a technician brings a frozen specimen of the original Blob back from the North Pole. When his wife accidentally defrosts the thing, it terrorizes the populace, including the local hippies, kittens and bowlers.
We start off seeing a kitten as it is walking through some tall grass. We go into the house of Chester Hargis (Godfrey Cambridge) and his wife Mariane (Marlene Clark). He is a scientist and just back from Antarctica. He has brought a sample of something that needs to stay frozen. He is keeping it in his freezer and Mariane takes it out. It unthaws, releasing the alien inside. It first eats the kitten and then goes after the humans.
The film then introduces all of our characters for the film. There is a Boy Scout troop led by Scoutmaster Adleman (Dick Van Patten). It is also Bobby Hartford’s (Robert Walker Jr.) birthday and his friends are throwing him a surprise party. His girlfriend Lisa Clark (Gwynne Gilford) sees Chester as the blob eats him. She panics and flees to Bobby. The problem is that no one believes her as this creature moves across the town, eating those that it encounters.
Something I really liked about this film is the continuity. This film takes place close to 20 years after the original one. The alien wasn’t really defeated in the original and just frozen, being taken to Antarctica. A sample was brought back and that is what starts to kill off everyone. The problem I had with this though I don’t buy a scientist bringing this sample home and then just letting his wife take it out where it thaws. I do think the better concept would probably be to have global warming and the ice caps melting.
This film also decided to go with comedy. I wasn’t the biggest fan of that, because most of it really didn’t land with me. I do think that it could have been played straight and it would have worked out much better.
The pacing of the film is actually good though. It doesn’t waste any time to introduce us to the creature and then it starts to kill people pretty quickly. The film is also good about showing the people worried about what is happening and trying to convince those that it is real while still cutting back to the blob as it is eating people. I thought the way they defeated the creature in this film was interesting. The ending is similar to the original in that it is kind of a cliff hanger with a slight twist. I didn’t mind it. It wasn’t great, but it was fitting for the film.
Acting in this film I thought was decent. Walker was fine as the hero in the film. I did like that he doesn’t believe his girlfriend and that seemed realistic. He does come around and it was pretty natural. Gilford was also good. I thought her being hysterical was played well. Richard Webb was fine as Sheriff Jones. I liked to see that Gerrit Graham, who is a comedic actor, was in the film. I thought the appearances of Carol Lynley, Patten, Sid Haig and Burgess Meredith were all good in the film too. The rest of the cast was fine in rounding out the film.
The effects in the film were also pretty good. I thought the look of the blob was good. They did really well in having it move into the frame without the characters seeing it and I liked it. They did go to that well a little bit too much though. I did like seeing it as it would enter things like a liquid and then returning to its normal form. We did get it to see this quite a bit as well. The film would also do something cool where it would change the color of the light by covering it to give off a red tint.
Soundtrack for the film wasn’t the greatest. The theme was very 1970’s, but I didn’t really enjoy it. I thought the rest of the score though was fine. It didn’t really stand out to me, but it also didn’t ruin the film. It fit the scenes for what they needed it to do.
Now with that said, I feel this film wasn’t that great. It did some good things, like picking up where the last film left off. I thought the acting was decent. Effects for the film were good though, even if they did repeat some things over and over again. The score of the film I thought was fine and fit for what they needed. I didn’t like the comedy in the film though as I thought it hurt it. The pacing of the film were good and the ending fit for what they needed. Overall I’d say that this film is below average.
My Rating: 4 out of 10