"Beware of the Blob. It creeps and leaps, and glides and slides across the floor. Indescribable... indestructible... insatiable ! Beware of the blob... "
Gee, why would I be thinking about a giant orange-red blob that rolls over everyone and sucks the life out of humanity? Sorry, this is my happy place away from politics, but many of the early horror films were related in some way to politics. The Blob was a metaphor of the mid-20th century's fear of communism, the atomic age and ignorance of science. The dialog of the film addresses it fairly pointedly...
Steve Andrews: How do you get people to fear things they don't believe in?
Lieutenant Dave: At least we got it stopped!
Steve Andrews: Yeah, as long as the arctic stays cold.
This film came out in 1958, so it's pretty clear that Climate Change science was an issue, I didn't grow up in that era, but I remember it being taught to me in Junior High, in the late 1970's, and pretty much everything I was told would happen, is happening! Unprecedented wildfires. Storms gradually gaining strength to horrific levels, the warming of the oceans. There's a list and I am sure you can check many boxes of the continuing devastation. We just never learn. Maybe the scariest part of The Blob, is our slowness to accept the truth, because accepting it is just too frightening to see.
Americans went to see this movie in 1958.
And we didn't learn a damn thing from it.
Can you believe there are still climate deniers in 2025?
Oh well, take all the politics out of it, The Blob, is still an awesome movie. Campy, yes, "B" movie... yes, but it's got a really fun theme song, and actually has a bigger picture involved, and that's why it's a classic!
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