10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Blob (1988)

I had the privilege of growing up in the 1980’s. It was a magical time for movies across all genres with so many iconic films being released in the most radical decade of them all.

Horror movie fans were not only introduced to the likes of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Chucky they were also treated to some of the most beloved horror movie remakes of all-time. 1982’s The Thing and 1986’s The Fly and last but not least, 1988’s The Blob! Director Chuck Russell perfectly paid homage to 1958’s The Blob (that starred Steve McQueen), while expanding upon the story and adding in comedic and action elements.

Recently I popped in my copy of the Collector’s Edition Blu-ray released by Scream Factory and enjoyed The Blob remake for the first time in years. I went ahead and checked out some of the special features that included exclusive commentary tracks, two featuring Chuck Russell and one featuring Shawnee Smith.

The commentary tracks served as the source material for this post as I present 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Blob…

1. Chuck Russell intended for The Blob to be his directorial debut. However after Russell pitched The Blob to New Line, Robert Shaye, the founder of New Line Cinema, was so impressed with Russell’s presentation he offered Russell the directorial job on A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 right then and there. Interestingly enough, New Line ultimately passed on producing The Blob, thus opening up the door for TriStar Pictures.

2. In addition to directing The Blob, Russell co-wrote The Blob screenplay with Frank Darabont. Russell and Darabont first met when both were working on the 1981 movie, Hell Night starring Linda Blair. Russell read a sample of Darabont’s writing and immediately knew he was going places.

3. There were two other key players that knew each other prior to The Blob, Shawnee Smith, who played Meg Penny and Donovan Leitch, who played Meg’s quarterback boyfriend, Paul Taylor. Donovan and Shawnee both went to Hollywood High School, where Shawnee was Donovan’s date to the prom. So The Blob was a bit of art imitating life. Another bit of art imitating life involved the memorable scene when Paul comes face to face with Meg’s pharmacist dad (played by Art LaFleur) who sold him ribbed condoms earlier that evening. This is actually something that happened to one of Chuck Russell’s high school friends.

4. Kevin Dillon, who played bad boy turned hero Brian Flagg, was not a fan of his mullet hair extensions.

5. While Shawnee Smith and Kevin Dillon were ultimately cast as the leads in The Blob, their roles almost went to Teri Hatcher and Richard Grieco.

6. The Blob did not have the luxury of an R&D period during pre-production to get the special effects down, so the special effects crew were basically doing the R&D as they went along. At one point the use of CGI was considered for The Blob effects, however the technology was not where it needed to be to make that happen, so they had to go the more traditional practical effects route. Russell considered this a blessing in disguise, since he believes that practical effects are more frightening.

7. The bulk of the movie was shot in the small town of Abbeville, Louisiana. The town welcomed the production with open arms. The family owned restaurant in town provided the meals for the cast and crew while they were there and many locals served as extras on the film.

8. The scenes that took place in the sewers, were not shot in Abbeville. Those scenes were shot on sets built in the Los Angeles area.

9. The jump portion of the big motorcycle jump scene went off without a hitch… however when the bike landed both tires blew out! To his credit, the stuntman performing the jump kept the bike upright even after the blow outs.

10. The ad campaign for The Blob was a victim of a regime change at TriStar Pictures which did the movie no favors at the box office. However the movie did ultimately find an audience when it hit the video store shelves and was on regular rotation on HBO.