Barely, 2.5 out of 10. It is a goo from space eating a small town, and the police refuse to believe the teenagers who saw it.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
2.5 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Low
You may side-eye a jar of jelly at breakfast, and then the feeling is gone.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, no dog dies.
Ruling: It is a drive-in monster movie about a very hungry jelly, so watch it with popcorn and a straight face.
The Blob runs eighty-two minutes. Two teenagers at a lovers' lane watch a meteorite crash outside their Pennsylvania town, and an old man pokes it with a stick, which goes about as well as you would guess.
The premise, briefly
When a meteorite lands outside their Pennsylvania town, teenagers Steve and Jane find a jelly-like alien that engulfs everything it touches, and then have to convince skeptical adults that it exists.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Steve works out that the Blob cannot stand cold, and firemen, police and students drive it back with fire extinguishers and freeze it. An Air Force cargo plane drops it on Arctic ice, where it stays frozen only as long as the Arctic does.
The scene you're dreading
The movie theater in the middle of the film: the Blob slides in, absorbs the projectionist, and oozes into the auditorium, and the audience runs out screaming. It is the moment the town finally believes Steve.
The dog
No dog dies in The Blob. A dog meets the Blob, and a character later says he saw it running down the street.
The Blob is a monster movie with one loud theater scene, and it is gentle once you know the Blob loses to cold.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
Don't poke the meteorite
In July 1957, teenagers Steve Andrews and Jane Martin are kissing at a lovers' lane in a small Pennsylvania town when a meteorite lands beyond the next hill. Steve goes to look, but an old man named Barney gets there first and prods the meteorite with a stick. It splits open, and a small jelly-like glob latches onto his hand. He cannot shake it off, and he runs into the road and nearly gets hit by Steve's car. The two of them drive him to Dr. Hallen, who puts him under and sends them back to find the impact site. Hallen plans to amputate the arm, but the Blob absorbs Barney first, then the nurse Kate, then the doctor, growing redder and bigger each time. Steve gets back in time to see Hallen try to climb out a window with the Blob on him. Lieutenant Dave Barton and Sergeant Jim Bert come back with them and find nothing, and Bert decides it is a prank.
The Blob swallows a mechanic at a repair shop. Steve and Jane then find his father's grocery store unlocked and the janitor missing, and the Blob corners them, so they hide in the walk-in freezer. It slides under the door and then pulls back. Steve rounds up his friends to warn people, and they trigger the fire alarm and the air-raid siren, but the police and townspeople still don't listen. This is the scene people brace for, and it happens in the middle of the story. During a midnight show at the Colonial Theater, the Blob gets in, absorbs the projectionist, and oozes out into the auditorium. People run out screaming, and the town finally takes Steve seriously.
The school principal breaks into his own school
Steve, Jane and her little brother Danny end up stuck inside a diner with its owner and one waitress while the Blob, huge by now, closes in on the building. Dave taps into the diner phone with his police radio and tells them to shelter in the cellar while the police drop a live power line onto the Blob. The shock does nothing to the Blob, and the diner catches fire. When the owner points a carbon dioxide extinguisher at the flames, Steve sees the Blob shrink back, and he remembers it also fled the freezer. He shouts the discovery toward the open phone line so that Dave hears it. Jane's father, Henry Martin, the high school principal, leads Steve's friends into the school to fetch its extinguishers. Students, firemen and police then push the Blob back from the diner and freeze it.
The ending, explained
Dave asks the authorities for an Air Force heavy-lift cargo plane to fly the frozen Blob to the Arctic. He knows the cold will hold it only while the Arctic stays cold, and that it will not kill it. Parachutes lower the Blob on a pallet onto an ice field, and the words The End on screen change into a question mark. Steve, Jane, Danny, the diner owner and the waitress all survive. Barney, Kate, Hallen, the mechanic and the projectionist were absorbed, and the Blob is still out there, frozen.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether The Blob has a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is The Blob scary?
Barely. The Blob is a 2.5 out of 10 with low dread: a drive-in monster movie about a jelly that engulfs people, with one loud theater scene.
How does The Blob end?
Steve works out that the Blob cannot take the cold, and the town freezes it with fire extinguishers. An Air Force plane drops it on Arctic ice, and The End turns into a question mark.
Does the dog die in The Blob?
No. In The Blob a dog meets the Blob, but a character later says he saw it running down the street, so no dog dies.
Is there a post-credits scene in The Blob?
Nobody has confirmed whether The Blob has a scene after the credits.
How do they stop the Blob in The Blob?
Cold. Steve notices that the Blob backs away from a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher, as it did from the freezer, and the town freezes it. It is then flown to the Arctic, where it should stay frozen.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of The Blob is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
The Blob is eighty-two minutes of a town ignoring two teenagers. Install Scaredy Cat and the trailers stay blurred while you read the plot instead.
