THE BLOB (1958)

Nobody ever said my quest to review every Criterion release was going to be fun, if they did then they're a smelly doodypants liar! I fully expected to be bored by some of the more pretentious arthouse films that are too advanced for my little brain, what I didn't expect though was how boring the original version of THE BLOB was going to be! I love old 50's/60's creature features, but other than a great story idea there's nothing going on in this stinker.

We all know the story of The Blob: a group of 30-year-old small town teenagers see a meteor falling nearby, so they go to investigate.  Once there, they find an old dude with some shit on his hand. They take him to the local doctor where the goop on his hand grows and starts consuming everything. It grows and grows until it's threatening the entire town!

Over the years, I'd seen the awesome 1988 remake dozens times and was very interested to see what the original was like.  Unfortunately, there are a number of long stretches with nothing more than the teenagers arguing with their parents and the cops. Yawn! Then, when the action finally shows up at the very end it's laughable.  You can even see fingerprints on the blob.  There are a few mildly exciting moments, but for the most part there's very little going on in this film.

I love the idea of The Blob as a monster and would love to see hundreds of sequels and reboots.  You could have The Blob showing up in all kinds of places and time periods.  The Blob in ancient Rome would be cool.  The Blob on the Titanic would be neat.  The Blob vs. The Thing!  The Blob vs. Predator?!  The Blob on the Planet of the Human Centipedes!  The ideas are endless.

Part 2 - Beware! The Blob (1972)

Remake - The Blob (1988)

 

MARTYRS (2008)

[Update 01/30/16: not the biggest fan of this review.  Will try to update it one day.  New screenshots also.]

Borrowing portions of films like HIGH TENSION, HOSTEL, HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER 2, ROSEMARY'S BABY and about 14,000 death metal album covers MARTYRS opens with a young lady escaping from a torture dungeon. Placed in an orphanage, she befriends another girl, Anna, but is haunted by the visions of tortured woman with a metal clamp bolted over her eyes. Stuff happens and years later Anna ends up being held captive by the same perverts that originally kidnapped the original chick. The group believes in some kind of bullshit transcendental wisdom through systematic torture. It's all very silly. So anyway, the remainder of the film is Anna being tortured nonstop. The first 15 minutes was mysterious, but after that the story just falls apart. Honestly, I just say skip it altogether.

On a positive note, the special effects were impressive.  Unfortunately, the director decided to film the action scenes in that extreme close-up/ jiggly camera way (think THE BOURNE IDENTITY movies) so at moments it's hard to tell what the fuck is even going on.

If you dig films like this, then you'll probably bust a nut for the AUGUST UNDERGROUND'S MORDUM, the Guinea Pig series or even better yet try out an actual good movie about torture: Pasolini's SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM.

Remake - Martyrs (2015)

INSIDE (2007)

Plain and simple: INSIDE is one of the best horror movies since the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. Reading anything else about it would just ruin it for you, so just take my word for it and if you like horror movies...watch it.

Remake - Inside (2016)