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If this film didn't star Steve McQueen; if it didn't open with a silly -- but catchy -- Burt Bacharach tune (lyrics by Mack David); if it weren't just clever enough to distract us from the monster's Achilles heel by giving us another plausible reason why the Blob doesn't kill McQueen and his girlfriend when it has the chance; if its brand of nostalgia weren't so hard to come by -- you know, the honest if not the trendy kind, where kids rebel but still love their parents and siblings; and if it didn't occasionally succeed in horrifying the more helpfully imaginative members of its audience; if it weren't for these things, this slack and often awkward movie wouldn't be nearly as fun as it is. Old man unwisely pokes a meteorite, the gooey contents of which seize his hand and begin to eat him up. McQueen and his girlfriend (Aneta Corsaut, later to become one of Sheriff Andy Taylor's potential brides in The Andy Griffith Show), haul the geezer to the town doctor, unwittingly feeding it a couple more bodies, whereupon the kids decide they must warn an unbelieving town of the gelatinous monster from space. Followed 14 years later by a sequel, Beware! The Blob, directed by Larry Hagman, and remade in 1988 as a film starring Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith.
If this film didn't star Steve McQueen; if it didn't open with a silly -- but catchy -- Burt Bacharach tune (lyrics by Mack David); if it weren't just clever enough to distract us from the monster's Achilles heel by giving us another plausible reason why the Blob doesn't kill McQueen and his girlfriend when it has the chance; if its brand of nostalgia weren't so hard to come by -- you know, the honest if not the trendy kind, where kids rebel but still love their parents and siblings; and if it didn't occasionally succeed in horrifying the more helpfully imaginative members of its audience; if it weren't for these things, this slack and often awkward movie wouldn't be nearly as fun as it is. Old man unwisely pokes a meteorite, the gooey contents of which seize his hand and begin to eat him up. McQueen and his girlfriend (Aneta Corsaut, later to become one of Sheriff Andy Taylor's potential brides in The Andy Griffith Show), haul the geezer to the town doctor, unwittingly feeding it a couple more bodies, whereupon the kids decide they must warn an unbelieving town of the gelatinous monster from space. Followed 14 years later by a sequel, Beware! The Blob, directed by Larry Hagman, and remade in 1988 as a film starring Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith.