Rob Zombie was at one point attached to an unmade remake of The Blob. A musician by trade, Zombie made his debut as a writer and director in 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses, the first of three installments in Zombie’s Firefly trilogy. With his uniquely gruesome styles of both music and filmmaking, Zombie has become an icon of cult horror, and in 2009 it was rumored that he would be lending his talents to a retelling of the classic film The Blob, a project that would unfortunately never come to fruition.
The Blob is originally a sci-fi horror film from 1958 starring legendary action star Steve McQueen. A mysterious gelatinous substance from outer space crash lands on earth and starts on a path of destruction, consuming everything that it encounters and growing exponentially. The effects were somewhat minimal, even for its time, but the unpolished look of the Blob adds another unsettling layer to the creature’s grotesque appearance. The film was successful in its own right, reaching and retaining cult status and influencing the landscape of horror for years to come, so the prospect of paying homage to The Blob’s legacy with an updated retelling is well-deserved.
Zombie claimed to have a dark and different take on The Blob, which is not hard to believe based on his body of work. Not much was ever revealed regarding the details of the film, but some of the concept artwork from the project was recently released and seem to show some of the changes that Zombie had in mind. Beyond some aesthetic overhauling to twist the material into something more in line with the director’s style, the artwork also appears to show several humans melted into monsters by the blob, which is starkly different from the all-consuming blob from the original. Rather than one ever-growing destructive mass, the creatures in Zombie’s story more closely resemble zombies, possibly each being part of a growing hive-mind capable of congealing into a giant pillar of flesh and bone.
Although the project had the makings of a classic Zombie movie, the director said that he’d had misgivings from the start. “...I was on the fence about doing anything that was considered a remake again. I really didn’t like the idea of that...”[via BloodyDisgusting]. In the late 2000s, Zombie directed two remakes of Halloween that were not exceptionally well-received, which has evidently left a mark on the filmmaker. ”…everyone talked about what it wasn’t and not what it was: ‘you can’t do that with Michael Myers; you can’t do that with Loomis…’ It’s like people have a set of rules in their minds about how these things should function, and you can’t work like that.”[via BirthMoviesDeath]. So, after several years in development, Zombie stepped away from the project. “...I didn’t feel good about the situation and I just walked away from it. My gut told me this was not a good place to be.”
Zombie’s unmade movie concept was scrapped and he was eventually replaced by director Simon West in 2015, but it is difficult to say when or if the film will ever be completed. After 12 years in development, the production studio behind the project is attempting to cut its ties, with the film’s producers fighting in court to retain the rights. Regardless of whether West’s version of the film is ever released, The Blob certainly would have benefited from Zombie’s unique perspective, setting it apart from other horror remakes of late, and it’s a shame that fans of the filmmaker won’t get to see his take on the classic film.