Beware! The Blob

I love the original 1958 film 'The blob.' I've somehow been unaware until very recently that 1972 sequel 'Beware! The blob' existed. Frankly, ignorance was bliss, and I wish I had it back.

This movie borrows the sci-fi horror stylings of the 50s flick, yes. Some death scenes are duly unsettling, and at its best there's a measure of uneasy atmosphere and tension at times. However, it then also tries to one-up the worst indulgences of its predecessor's B-movie contemporaries with awful, unfunny ham-handedness that closely resembles mid-century TV shows like 'The Munsters,' 'Batman,' or 'The Partridge Family' more than anything else. Couple this with astounding, blithe inauthenticity in the characters, dialogue, and scene writing - and not least in the acting. There's not one trace of sincerity in anyone's performances; if I didn't know any better I'd say they were drunk or high every time the camera was rolling, or had never been in front of a camera before and couldn't suppress a nervous smile. If not for tasteless scenes of animals getting eaten by the blob, then I'd be cheering for the ooze just in the hope that all the characters go away - and then the cast, crew, and filmmakers, in turn.

'Beware!' wants to be an extra gauche and campy horror-comedy, but it also wants to offer earnest disquiet as the blob advances. Both strains fall apart owing to the confounding lack of care that anyone put into the project. I hate to fall back on 'Manos: The hands of fate' as a point of comparison, but it's a worthwhile one here, because for all the faults of Harold P. Warren's no-budget infamy, at least in that instance everyone involved poured genuine effort into their contributions. This could have been fun, one way or another, but the picture we get is a mess where the appearance of the creature seems to be the only aspect consistently deserving of praise. Maybe I'm just not properly attuned to this level of kitsch, yet the fact that this 1972 feature is strongest where it echoes its 1958 antecedent - and emphatically weakest when its own flavors are infused - says much. If only it could have found one steady tone; even the climax and ending, which seem so promising at first, can't completely avoid the wild, unwieldy oscillation.

Sure, I've seen worse movies. So what? One could watch this in recognition of what it does irregularly do well - or my suggestion would be to just rewatch the 1958 movie, because that's why you're here in the first place. 'Beware! The blob' is a sad instance of a sequel that we honestly just didn't need.

The story goes that Larry Hagman had a week or two free, and wanted to have some fun. So...he put together a GREAT group of folks for cameos (and red jello, to boot!), and made this grade-z 'horror'! If you want to just have fun...with far more laughs than gasps...and you have 90 minutes to kill...rent it! It's right up there in the genre of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"...

OK, I don't know why people knock this movie. I saw this when I was a kid, and it genuinely scared the crap out of me. I watch it now, and it still gives me the creeps in some scenes, the hippie getting his (final) haircut, for example.

I think Larry Hagman made this movie just to have some fun, and it clearly shows. I mean come on, where else are you going to see Burgess Meredith (God rest his soul) as a hippie? Some of the scenes were just plain hilarious, such as the scenes with Dick van Patten and the Boy Scouts, for example. Watching him talk to Lisa in the beginning, and getting annoyed at the scouts because of the "Kerbangers" later on, were terrific. I would have liked to have seen what happened to his character, but I guess we can figure it out for ourselves, eh?

Like I said, it looks like Larry and company had a lot of fun.

Give it a chance, and check it out. You won't be disappointed.

Kevin

If I had not seen BEWARE!THE BLOB as an impressionable youth, maybe I could look at it as a cheezy, poorly acted, uneven special effects, campy movie. But there is something sinister going on in this flick, and untill I read a mini revue in CULT MAGAZINE I thought maybe I was just being sensitive. A follow-up to the famous original about a man eating jello from outer space, most critics said something to the effect that BEWARE! THE BLOB doesn't know if it wants to be a horror movie or a comedy, so it fails at both, but I don't agree with that sum-up. I think Larry Hagman (and, or the writers)did something unlike anything done before. In a Horror-comedy, the humor is there to relieve the horror. HERE they got it backwards! We see characters doing goofy sit-com type things, and then they get eaten by the blob! I find the mix of styles very disturbing. This movie gave me nightmares as a kid, and I still can't shake it off! I think Hagman also had a lot of contempt at the time he made this flick. The characters are usually stupid and brain dead to their surroundings, making them easy prey (they are all self-absorbed before being blob-absorbed!). I find the bowling ally attack to be very effective despite the uneven special effects. I know some of you may think I'm taking this silly movie way to seriously and, okay, maybe I am.. But now when you go to a bowling ally, or to the barbers, or sit back in your easy chair just like Godfry Cambridge did, you may just think twice.. BEWARE!

More of a comedy than a horror flick with an all-star cast in this rarely seen 1972 sequel to the original 1958 "The Blob". This version starts out as a mysterious substance in a sealed container that reads "Specimen--keep frozen", which a man brings home and puts in the freezer. Then his wife, not knowing what's inside it, leaves it out on the counter where it escapes and begins to grow and reak havoc across town. Two teenagers set out to try and warn people of it's approach, but nobody, including the local police, wants to take them seriously, until they see it swallowing up everyone and everything in it's path. Starring Larry Hagman, Burgess Meredith, Shelley Berman, Dick Van Patton, Carol Lynley & Cindy Williams.