Rob Zombie To Remake ‘The Blob’

After digging his claws into the Halloween franchise and making not one, but two remakes of that classic horror series, writer/director Rob Zombie has now set his sights on updating the classic horror film, The Blob. You may not know that the Chuck Russell-directed, Kevin Dillon-starring Blob from the late ’80s (which was co-written by Frank Darabont, FYI) is actually a remake itself of the 1958 version, which effectively launched the career of the legendary Steve McQueen.

Zombie is diving in with both feet with his reinvention of The Blob: he’s writing, producing and directing it on a modest budget of $30 million. The original movie was about a mysterious object that crashes to Earth containing a red blob-like substance that absorbs the humans it comes into contact with and grows exponentially. But just like he ruined altered the mythos of Halloween by explaining how Michael Myers became what he was, Zombie has something different in mind for The Blob than was seen before:

“My intention is not to have a big red blobby thing — that’s the first thing I want to change… That gigantic Jello-looking thing might have been scary to audiences in the 1950s, but people would laugh now.”

I agree that if the original Blob design was carbon-copied for the remake it wouldn’t be all that scary to modern audiences, who are used to more explicit gore horror. But if there has to be a remake (and we’ll get to THAT debate in a moment), then I would like to see it stay true to the original Blob. Again, don’t carbon-copy the original, but don’t change it completely either. Or else why call it The Blob?

Zombie went onto say why he wants to do a remake of The Blob, instead of continuing on with what he’s doing (more straight up “horror”):

“I’d been looking to break out of the horror genre, and this really is a science fiction movie about a thing from outer space… I intend to make it scary, and the great thing is I have the freedom once again to take it in any crazy direction I want to.”

Similar to the other horror director I really, really don’t like (Eli Roth), I’d be curious to see what Zombie would come up with. With The Blob he’ll obviously still have one foot in the horror genre (also similar, I’d imagine, to Roth’s upcoming sci-fi film, Endangered Species), but he’ll also be testing the sci-fi waters with the other foot.

The Blob (1958)

The Blob is one of those ideas that I don’t see working nowadays. As I said, the modern horror movie audience is used to much more extremities in their movies (at least visually) than what The Blob offers, so unless the different direction that Zombie is willing to go in totally strikes the right chord (a faster, smarter, blob?), I just don’t know if it will be all that effective a move. With my disdain for Zombie as a filmmaker, him being the one to write, produce and direct it doesn’t exactly get me behind the project.

What do you think about another remake of The Blob? Do you think Zombie is the right one to update the idea?

The Blob currently has no scheduled release date but is being aimed to start shooting sometime next Spring. Zombie has already begun writing the script, and expects to get it finished after he’s finished his next music tour/album release.

Source: Variety