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Press
Release for the movie "The Blob" (1988)
In the late 50's and early 60's, American moviemakers created a monster.
Many monsters, in fact ... but only one ruled. A creature so simple, and yet so
disgusting, that it was almost elegant.
The one. The only: the Blob.
It was The Golden Age of the American B-Movie. You remember -- I saw you in the
back row, snuggled up with your sweetheart during the scary parts. That was
supposed to be romantic. And it would have been, if either of you had been able
to stop screaming.
The original "Blob" thrilled and terrified an early generation of science
fiction fans, even with low-budget special effects. and now its 1988. And "THE
BLOB" is back. Today's "BLOB" is more loathsome than ever with visual effects so
startling and dramatic that moviegoers will be... glued to their seats. Thanks
to modern multi-million dollar special effects The Blob is now meaner, faster,
more menacing and much, much BIGGER.
Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith star in this sci-fi thriller with Donovan Leitch,
Jeffrey DeMunn, Candy Clark, Joe Seneca, Del Close, Paul McCrane, Ricky Paull
Goldin and Michael Kenworthy. "THE BLOB" screenplay was written by Chuck Russell
and Frank Darabont, directed by Russell and produced by Jack H. Harris and
Elliott Kastner. Andre Blay is executive producer.
"THE BLOB" is a simple tale of a vile, malignant life form that crashes to earth
in a cozy, rural American town called Arborville. Untroubled by conscience or
intelligence, the Blob does only one thing, and does it very well. It eats
anything that moves; men, women, children. And tonight it wants to swallow
Arborville whole.
"Picture a Blob in your mind," says Dillon when recently asked to describe his
toughest opponent by The Daily News. "it can slide into any crevice and glide
under doors. It can hang on the ceiling and drop on you, plop! It's wild. It's
slimy, it's greasy, yet it strikes you fast. The first Blob was slow. This Blob
shoots out tendrils of Blob. If you get wrapped up in the Blob, your body melts.
The Blob starts out clear and gets redder as it absorbs more people." Yeccch.
Shawnee Smith Plays Meg Penny, the high school cheerleader who is the first
person to see the Blob and live to tell about it. This happens on her luckless
first date with Paul Taylor, the high school football star played by Donovan
Leitch.
Ricky Paull Goldin plays Scott Jeskey, Paul's friend and not-so-lovable sidekick
who has a collapsible bar in the trunk of his car. He keeps a box of phony
school rings next to the swizzle sticks, and uses them to seduce his many
"steadies." But this time tonight's date is going to really surprise him.
Meg's younger brother, Kevin, is played by Michael Kenworthy. Meg sure has a
rough time looking out for him... maybe he'll listen next time his Mom tells him
not to go to horror movies.
Kevin Dillon plays Brian Flagg, the motorcycle riding outlaw who sweeps Meg off
her feet... literally, and only inches away from the Blob. He's not really a bad
kid, but he's misunderstood by Sheriff Geller, portrayed by Jeffrey DeMunn. The
Sheriff isn't quite as hard on Brian as his deputy, Bill Briggs, who is
portrayed by Paul McCrane.
The Sheriff is actually a very decent guy, which explains why he's taken with
Arborville's prettiest waitress, Fran, played by Candy Clark. They have a date
tonight when he's off duty. But something stands between them... something slimy
and hungry that has a serious attitude problem. People in Arborville seem to
have a really tough time on their first dates.
Del Close is Reverend Meeker, the upstanding local preacher who gets a little
too close to The Blob -- as we discover The Blob's origin and possible future in
one of the frightening twists in this sci-fi thriller.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the original "Blob's" release
The original was shot at the Valley Forge, PA studios for roughly $240,000, and
premiered in September, 1958. It played on a double bill with "I Married A
Monster From Outer Space."
At the time of its release, critics called the Blob everything from "raspberry
jam . . . deadly menace to a "red hot cantaloupe." However, "The Blob" was
praised for it's innovative camera work, and soon attained cult status.
"The Blob" is exactly the kind of B-movie that many modern producers would love
to get their hands on. Jack Harris is one of the producers of today's "BLOB,"
and he also produced the original "Blob." Over the past thirty years, Harris has
turned down numerous offers to expand the Blob character. CBS even wanted to
serialize a 'benign' Blob for television. When Director Chuck Russell
("Nightmare on Elm Street III") approached Harris with the idea of creating a
modern Blob, Harris knew that the time was right.
Who else but Chuck Russell, with impressive backgrounds in both mainstream and
cult moviemaking, could help bring the Blob back to life for an Eighties
audience? " Its something I've always wanted to do. To take modern effects
technology and apply it to a situation where a group of characters in a small
town are confronted with an ultimate evil... we've let our imaginations run
wild," says Russell. Now thanks to the talents of writer/director Russell we are
about to meet a new Blob, a Blob we've never seen before. "I felt that the
creature in the original fell into a category along with Frankenstein and the
Mummy where you'd really have to be slow not to be able to get away from it. So
he wanted something that was much more of an efficient predator. In fact, Jack
Harris has told me 'you guys have the Blob doing everything we've always wanted
it to do when we first made it.'"
First, Russell (with Frank Darabont) completed the initial version of the script
before directing his "Nightmare on Elm Street III" for New Line Cinema.
Following that film's success, Russell was able to work on "THE BLOB" full time.
Russell and Darabont's final script is a contemporary rendition of the classic.
High tech horror and roller coaster paced action catapult the story into the
Eighties. The Blob's main adversary in the original was a clean-cut high
schooler played by Steve McQueen. Today it's whole-some cheerleader Meg Penny
(Shawnee Smith) battling the Blob with local motorcycle riding townie Brian
Flagg (Kevin Dillon) and football heartthrob Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch).
Unlike the teenagers in the original movie, they don't rely on their
irrepressible charm to convince the authorities that their town is in danger.
They beat the Blob with their own wits and daring.
In updating the film Russell found that there were a couple of images people had
from the original, like the theater scene, that would be a challenge to reinvent
for a modern, more sophisticated horror audience. " Just the idea of showing our
movie theater audience themselves and saying, 'What would you do if you turned
around and looked at the back of the projection booth and saw a ton and a half
of enraged slime coming at you..."
Continues Russell, "There are one or two moments from the original that we refer
to but the film is not a homage. I think we're true to the spirit of the
original but we have our own characters. Characters that must rise to heroic
proportions when they face a relentless unstoppable creature that threatens
their entire town."
So the magic of the original's has been enhanced by modern, state-of-the-art
special effects. There were three different types of effects used in the movie:
visual, 'creature', and make-up effects.
Hoyt Yeatman's company, Dream Quest, is responsible for all of the optical
effects in the film. Dream Quest also supplied much of the visual wizardry for
"Nightmare on Elm Street III," "The Fly," "Indiana Jones and The Temple of
Doom," and "Twilight Zone: The Movie.'' Their work involves plate and blue
screen photography, miniature photography, Rotoscoping, stop-motion and motion
control photography, and finally composites.
'Composites' are the final shots that are the result of combining two or more
shots. For example, in some of movie theater scenes, one shot (called the
'principal') is a sequence of the characters running in front of a blue screen.
When the composite is created, the film makers 'key in' the 'master shot' of the
Blob where the blue screen used to be. A technician tells a computer to
substitute the master shot wherever the specific blue color of the screen
appears. The computer can tell the precise frequency range of that particular
blue.
Lyle Conway ("Little Shop of Horrors"), Stuart Ziff ("Ghostbusters") and Mike
Fink ("Buckaroo Bonzai") along with their "creature effects" crew coordinated
production activities with principal photography and miniature sequences. Conway
received an Oscar nomination for his plant creations in "Little Shop of
Horrors." During production, they often worked with life-sized models of the
Blob. In fact, there was a full range of "Blobs" from fully animated "Attack
Blobs" to "Gravity Blobs" built on sets designed to revolve -- all carefully
designed to create the illusion of one very aggressive, living growing organism.
In fact, the crew motto became, "We've got the right Blob for the right job."
You might think that the Blob was the only character who required a model. Not
quite! Make-up effects coordinator Tony Gardner designed and constructed the
Blob's victims. You may have seen some of Gardner's work in the movie "Aliens"
-- but his artistry reaches new heights in "THE BLOB". One of Gardner's most
realistic masterpieces is a half-melted cheerleader from Arborville High.
Donovan Leitch, who plays Paul Taylor, the High School football star, had to
have a full body cast made of himself for one of the more complicated models.
Leitch has had the first-hand experience with claustrophobia that the rest of us
can only have nightmares about.
Leitch also had to have a computer miniature made of his torso. This technique
was used frequently throughout the movie, and Gardner's creations are used in
scenes shot in both principal and miniature photography.
While many scenes required the latest technology and special effects, the movie
also needed a natural backdrop. The film demanded a pastoral landscape complete
with peaceful people and countryside for the Blob to destroy.
Abbeville, Louisiana was chosen for it's well-preserved downtown and small town
charm, and was completely transformed into the ski resort town of Arborville.
Cameras rolled for production at dawn on January 12, 1988. The opening sequences
on the football field were shot at Vermilion Catholic High School, using the
school's own football players, and players from Abbeville High. Hundreds of
local residents responded to a casting call for extras, and filled the bleachers
of Abbeville's stadium. Local television news teams showed up to cover
Abbeville's motion picture debut, and even Abbeville's mayor appeared to speak
to film makers.
Even on the coldest of January nights, Abbeville residents stood vigil, watching
in helpless fascination as the production -- and the Blob -- invaded their
streets. How often do you get to see your home town destroyed by a creature from
outer space? Director Russell shot the film's night exteriors for three straight
weeks, using dozens of locals as extras. The final scene of the film was shot on
the crew's last night in Abbeville and, again, town officials were on hand for
the early morning wrap and farewell.
After three-and-a-half more weeks on location in Los Angeles, "THE BLOB" moved
indoors to the Valencia sound stages where principal photography continued
through April 6. Now that the film is completed, "THE BLOB" is moving again --
to theaters throughout America.
In fact, you never know where "THE BLOB" will turn up next. Look out for "THE
BLOB"...
It's all over.
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