haineshisway
Senior HTF Member
Well, well, well. Last night I watched The Blob – not the 1958 The Blob that we all know and love, no, the remake from 1988, which I’d never seen. After reading on another board of a transfer that barely looks better than VHS, of extreme grain, of barely better than DVD, and even a review that said that The Blob "may be" from a dated source, despite giving the transfer four out of five stars. So, why bring up the specter of a dated source, which introduces a note of alarm for no reason whatsoever?
So, what have we got here? I come to the remake of The Blob anew. I, of course, saw the original when it came out and I liked it a lot back then and still have a certain fondness for it now. The remake has spawned a rabid cult of people who probably saw it at an impressionable age, not in theaters, where it did not do especially well, but on cable, where they would apparently watched it over and over again, so that several of these folks call it their all-time favorite film. Makes you stop and scratch the old noggin’, doesn't it? I stayed away from the remake because of all the people saying it was ultra violent with really gory effects. I must have not seen that version when I watched the Twilight Time release. The version I saw had fairly standard issue effects and was not especially gory not even by late 80s standards and nowhere near as nauseating as the effects in John Carpenter's The Thing.
So, that was the first surprise. The remake replays quite a few of the original's scenes verbatim in terms of structure and what happens within the scenes and where they are set. But, an hour in and the film veers off into non-alien territory that is really quite silly. We've already had one wholesale lifting of a moment from Alien by that time, but as soon as the men in the bio suits arrive, at least for the first ten minutes of their arrival, we've suddenly wandered into a Steven Spielberg film, complete with one almost exact line rip-off from ET. Once we find out what's really going on, then we go into action mode for the rest of the film. It's all perfectly competent save for the acting, which is barely competent from every single person in the film except Candy Clark and Shawnee Smith, both of whom are very good. Kevin Dillon a hero is not and I found him slightly more off-putting than his brother, especially the hairdo.
All that said, there are a handful of amusing moments, the pacing is fine, and it's better than most useless remakes. It didn't exactly put its director on the map - he's really not had much of a career since, although according to the imdb he has about six movies about to be made - I kind of doubt we'll be seeing any of them anytime soon. Co-screenwriter Frank Darabont of course has had a bit of a career post The Blob.
Now to the transfer. Is it barely better than VHS and DVD? I think those with actual brains in their heads and who've seen the disc know the answer. It's a terrific transfer and looks just like a late 80s film should look. There are a lot of opticals, some heavy smoke and diffusion and it's all very well done and looks really solid in terms of detail, contrast and color. And as to "it may be from a dated source" - absolutely correct - if by dated you mean a transfer done at the beginning of 2014, which is exactly when this transfer was done. Facts are always a good thing to have at your disposal. If this is your sort of thing, I cannot imagine you will be disappointed - and it's down to its final couple hundred copies after almost thirty days of being able to purchase it. But when it sells out, be that in a day or two or even a week, you can bet that on other boards (well, one board) you will have thirty pages of posts that say "Damn you Twilight Time, I was just about to buy it." Mark my words.
So, what have we got here? I come to the remake of The Blob anew. I, of course, saw the original when it came out and I liked it a lot back then and still have a certain fondness for it now. The remake has spawned a rabid cult of people who probably saw it at an impressionable age, not in theaters, where it did not do especially well, but on cable, where they would apparently watched it over and over again, so that several of these folks call it their all-time favorite film. Makes you stop and scratch the old noggin’, doesn't it? I stayed away from the remake because of all the people saying it was ultra violent with really gory effects. I must have not seen that version when I watched the Twilight Time release. The version I saw had fairly standard issue effects and was not especially gory not even by late 80s standards and nowhere near as nauseating as the effects in John Carpenter's The Thing.
So, that was the first surprise. The remake replays quite a few of the original's scenes verbatim in terms of structure and what happens within the scenes and where they are set. But, an hour in and the film veers off into non-alien territory that is really quite silly. We've already had one wholesale lifting of a moment from Alien by that time, but as soon as the men in the bio suits arrive, at least for the first ten minutes of their arrival, we've suddenly wandered into a Steven Spielberg film, complete with one almost exact line rip-off from ET. Once we find out what's really going on, then we go into action mode for the rest of the film. It's all perfectly competent save for the acting, which is barely competent from every single person in the film except Candy Clark and Shawnee Smith, both of whom are very good. Kevin Dillon a hero is not and I found him slightly more off-putting than his brother, especially the hairdo.
All that said, there are a handful of amusing moments, the pacing is fine, and it's better than most useless remakes. It didn't exactly put its director on the map - he's really not had much of a career since, although according to the imdb he has about six movies about to be made - I kind of doubt we'll be seeing any of them anytime soon. Co-screenwriter Frank Darabont of course has had a bit of a career post The Blob.
Now to the transfer. Is it barely better than VHS and DVD? I think those with actual brains in their heads and who've seen the disc know the answer. It's a terrific transfer and looks just like a late 80s film should look. There are a lot of opticals, some heavy smoke and diffusion and it's all very well done and looks really solid in terms of detail, contrast and color. And as to "it may be from a dated source" - absolutely correct - if by dated you mean a transfer done at the beginning of 2014, which is exactly when this transfer was done. Facts are always a good thing to have at your disposal. If this is your sort of thing, I cannot imagine you will be disappointed - and it's down to its final couple hundred copies after almost thirty days of being able to purchase it. But when it sells out, be that in a day or two or even a week, you can bet that on other boards (well, one board) you will have thirty pages of posts that say "Damn you Twilight Time, I was just about to buy it." Mark my words.