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(Review originally written at 16 October 2010)

Even though this is one incredibly simplistic and cheap made '50's monster movie, it's still one that works out surprising well.

It really has all of the ingredients in it to be a bad movie. Some lousy dialog, some incredibly stupid and unlikely situation and one of the most unlikely monster villains out of movie history. Yet when it all gets brought together it works out surprising well and above all things as very entertaining. Even the bad dialog and acting and the awkward unnecessary long sequences that add nothing at all to movie its story, all help to give the movie a great kind of atmosphere and style all over it. It's hard to take a movie like this very seriously and it's clumsy film-making only adds to this, which in return makes this strangely enough a very entertaining one to watch.

Perhaps it's actually being due to the fact that this movie has such an unlikely but original monster in it that it works out far better and more entertaining than just the average genre attempt, from around the same time period. It's a faceless monster, without any motivation and without any back-story. It came from outer space and it consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows and that's all we need to know about it really. It makes it also quite unpredictable, which makes the movie original to watch as well.

Another reason why this movie has become sort of a cult-classic over the years is because it features Steve McQueen in his first leading role. It's definitely kind of surreal seeing the great Steve McQueen acting in a type of movie like this one. He did the best he could with the awkward dialog but he still couldn't prevent that the acting in this movie came across as lazy and silly. It's nothing more than a fun fact that this movie features Steve McQueen but just don't expect him to shine in this, though his charisma and sort of bad boy look and behavior is already very notable.

For a B-monster movie from the '50's, with science-fiction elements in it, the movie definitely has some surprising good effects in it as well. It doesn't feature 'the blob' as prominently as you might aspect but the effects used for it are simply convincing. It actually used different effects for it throughout the movie but all of them blend in well with the entire movie and make it actually a very threatening and convincing movie monster.

About as good and as entertaining as the genre can get.

8/10

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About Frank Veenstra

Watches movies...writes about them...and that's it for now.
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