Editorials
Why ‘The Blob’ Remake Features One of the All-Time Best Movie Monsters
Sometimes, the most simple movie monsters can become the most terrifying, especially when it comes to gruesome kills and excellent practical effects. The eponymous monster in 1988’s The Blob, directed by Chuck Russell from a script he co-wrote with Frank Darabont, acts as a giant slithering stomach, dissolving its food for digestion with extreme acidity. There’s no trace of intelligence in the amoeba-like entity; it’s just an insatiable need to feed. That means that not only is the body count high for this ever-growing creature, but the deaths are deliciously mean-spirited and unforgettable thanks to gruesome special makeup effects from Tony Gardner (Zombieland, “Chucky”) and an incredible team of artists.
Russell and Darabont reinforce the SFX showcase with unpredictability and meticulous characterization to ensure that not only do the character deaths look painful, but they also hurt emotionally. It’s not just the creature effects that make the Blob’s early reveal so effective and memorable, but its narrative impact, too.
The Setup
Much like the 1958 sci-fi horror classic that it’s based on, this remake follows a small town besieged by an amorphous alien lifeform that crash lands and begins feasting upon the residents. It’s up to unlikely teen heroes to stop it. Here, The Blob introduces Donovan Leitch as Paul, a high school football player with a heart of gold and the contemporary update to Steve McQueen’s 1958 protagonist. The first act follows Paul as he finally works up the nerve to ask out cheerleader Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith), while outsider Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon) seeks to fix his bike while evading the watchful eyes of the Sheriff’s office. The town of Arborville, California, is so preoccupied with its daily struggles and drama, along with the unusually warm weather, that only the local Can Man (Billy Beck) notices the meteorite crash landing in the woods nearby.
Can Man finds the meteorite cracked in two, with a pale jelly inside. His curiosity jumpstarts the substance; it latches onto his hand and begins its reign of terror.
The Monster Reveal
Paul and Meg’s first date gets off to a rocky start, first through Paul’s introduction to Meg’s dad, Tom (Art LeFleur), then with a surprise collision with Brian Flagg and Can Man on the road. Brian and Meg take the older vagabond to the hospital, where they wait to give their statement to authorities and ensure the patient is okay. Russell shows the viewer the truth; the man is being horrifically consumed alive in a quiet exam room, with no one the wiser. Paul offers Meg a drink from the vending machine, where his curiosity leads him to the discovery of the Blob’s purpose.
Poor Meg discovers Paul tucked away in the doctor’s office, almost wholly enveloped in the Blob. As it’s dragging him toward the open window, he’s reaching for her while screaming in terror and pain. Only his right arm is untouched, and in Meg’s attempts to pull him free, the arm is severed by digestive acids, and Meg falls backward, knocking herself unconscious against the wall. Paul is dissolved alive in the creature’s stomach acids.
Russell and Darabont borrow a trick from Psycho to pull the rug out from under viewers by the end of the first act; Paul isn’t the Steve McQueen character of this film at all. The image of Paul screaming in pain and horror as he reaches for a shocked Meg sears into your skull, and it’s only the start of a town wide massacre. This shocking death doesn’t just subvert expectations by removing the conventional hero from the equation; it serves as a stunning SFX showcase and relays important information about the creature.
The Death Toll
True to its name, the Blob lacks shape, which means that it can fit into and through anything, from kitchen drains to tiny cracks in walls or floors. It also happens to grow bigger the more it feeds, making it all the harder to evade. Suffice it to say that this movie monster comes with a high kill count as it makes its way across Arborville.
Gardner and crew deliver no shortage of brutal, ooey, gooey on-screen demises. There are eleven deaths on screen for named characters, each consumed in various grisly ways, but the Blob partakes in multiple human buffets over the course of the film. The first is the requisite theater sequence, which sees the Blob unleash its first feeding frenzy upon unsuspecting horror movie watchers. The indiscriminate killer then devours any and all military personnel encountered in the sewers before its final siege in the streets in front of the town hall.
With a total death toll of roughly 30 or so human snacks, the Blob is one of the more vicious killing machines to emerge from the ’80s. No one is safe here. Not the designated hero, not the scientists that made him, and especially not the children.
The Impact
The Blob wasn’t a box office success upon its release in 1988. Released amidst peak summer blockbuster season, the remake failed to register with critics and audiences alike, only finding its fans over time after releasing on home video. Thanks to the gnarly practical effects, the Blob remains a timeless movie monster. That’s also helped by Russell and Darabont’s script, which adds humor to the story and gives a refreshing conspiracy theory twist- the alien lifeform isn’t alien at all but a manmade biological weapon.
Russell and Darabont’s script, under Russell’s direction, complete with a fantastic cast and innovative, practical effects come together to make The Blob an all-time great. The Blob is a simple concept, just a shapeless entity that operates solely on the instinct to consume. The way it grows more vibrant and pink as it digests more human tissue and blood, combined with the unpleasant nature of its feeding habits, ensured this movie monster earned its spot in the pantheon of great movie monsters. So much so that another remake is in development now.
Where to Watch
The Blob doesn’t appear on streaming often, but it’s available on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
In television, “Monster of the Week” refers to the one-off monster antagonists featured in a single episode of a genre series. The popular trope was originally coined by the writers of 1963’s The Outer Limits and is commonly employed in The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and so much more. Pitting a series’ protagonists against featured creatures offered endless creative potential, even if it didn’t move the serialized storytelling forward in huge ways. Considering the vast sea of inventive monsters, ghouls, and creatures in horror film and TV, we’re borrowing the term to spotlight horror’s best on a weekly basis.
There’s a lot of reading left to do in 2026, between the glut of summer releases and the approach of fall, when horror titles get a special push from publishers, but this has already been an incredible year for horror literature.
Some of the biggest names in the genre have turned in outstanding work, rising stars have made their mark, and we’re only halfway through the year.
To celebrate the midway point of 2026, with plenty of horror books still to come, we’re taking a look back at the best horror books we’ve read this year so far, listed alphabetically by author.
If you missed any of these books earlier in the year, consider this your reminder to catch up.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
A student running from a crime he may or may not have committed escapes to his father’s country home in Japan, only to find himself haunted by strange apparitions, while in the past, a young samurai tries to find salvation for her family and finds a door to the future instead. Kylie Lee Baker’s Japanese Gothic begins with this dialogue between past and present, and then blossoms into so much more, a cross-time ghost story about old wounds and what it really takes to finally heal them. I got so happily lost in this one that I would have read at least 200 more pages.
Persona by Aoife Josie Clements
In this tale of shut-ins, sex workers, artists, and the horrors they both summon and recoil from, Aoife Josie Clements weaves something that feels less like a story to be experienced and more like a psychic wound to be endured, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Evocative in its prose and nightmarish in its imagery, Persona is a story of the masks we wear, and the understanding that not all of our masks are particularly pretty or even easy to breathe through. It’s a dense, literary, unnervingly vicious book, and while it’s already attracted an audience, it deserves a much bigger one.
Dead First by Johnny Compton
Johnny Compton’s latest novel opens with a throwing down of the gauntlet, a sequence that made me instantly think “How on Earth is he going to top this?” It’s a story that begins with a billionaire hiring a private investigator to determine why, despite trying in many brutal ways, he cannot die. That premise, and the scene which sets it all off, is so alluring and delightfully gruesome that you almost can’t believe it’s the way a book begins, and then Compton just keeps going, delivering a supernatural mystery that I could not put down.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
A woman grieving for the life she wanted visits a mysterious island renowned for the healing salt its residents harvest and sell, seeking renewal and relief. What she finds instead is a strange cult with a twisted history with surprising resonance in her own life, and a people who are more than willing to grant the relief she wants, for a price. Laced with beautiful prose and moments of profound realization alongside folk and even cosmic horror, this is vintage Sarah Gailey.
Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus
If you love horror film history and analysis, Partially Devoured is an essential. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Kraus, the book is a deep dive into his favorite movie of all time, George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead, complete with exhaustive research into the making of the film and passages of deeply moving memoir woven in. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the eerie music that opens the film is called while also bursting into tears at how horror movies can save your life, this is a must-read.
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Our reigning King of Extreme Horror, Eric LaRocca weaves books of uncommon beauty out of the most nightmarish parts of humanity, and Wretch is no exception. The story of a grieving man who longs for relief and searches for it amid a strange support group that might be a cult, Wretch is a brutal journey into the darkest part of us all, and explores what salvation we might find when we get to the rotten core of the world and peel back its layers. LaRocca’s on a tear of great work right now that few other genre writers can match.
Headlights by CJ Leede
A mystery, a serial killer horror show, a tribute to Stephen King‘s The Shining. All of these things describe CJ Leede’s Headlights, and yet they don’t begin to cover the full breadth of horror awaiting you in this novel. The story of a former FBI agent drawn back into the cold case that haunts him most, it’s a shocker brimming over with vivid moments that’ll live behind your eyes. CJ Leede has now published three novels, and they’re all bangers, so it’s time to get on board if you haven’t already.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia Pelayo has been one of our finest genre writers for years now, but It Came From Neverland is my favorite thing she’s written, and it’s not even close. A dark take on Peter Pan from the perspective of an adult Wendy Darling living in World War I-era London, Pelayo’s book works as both a satisfying horror narrative and a rich exploration of what it really means to never grow up. The horror never loses its potency, but it’s the search for the meaning behind the Peter Pan phenomenon in our own lives, and what we can do about it, that sticks with me most.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo
Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters is a slim volume, one you can read in just a couple of hours if you’ve got the inclination, but it has the feel of a generation-spanning epic. The story of a breed of vampires born in Central America, the European vampires who encounter them, and the offspring they eventually produced, it spans centuries and packs loads of juicy lore into its pages while never losing its grip on character and narrative drive. I would read hundreds more pages of this world, but I’ll settle for this uncommonly grand-scale novella for now.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay
A former pro gamer gets a job at a tech company to pilot a brain-dead human body across the country, and so Paul Tremblay’s sci-fi-horror juggernaut begins. Indebted to Philip K. Dick, the primal snarl of Harlan Ellison, and the quirky comedy of The Big Lebowski, and yet wholly original, this is a towering and ambitious novel by one of horror’s most respected voices. What starts as a high-concept tech thriller soon becomes a startling meditation on the value of stories, who gets to tell them, and what happens when we cede too much control to machines we don’t understand. It’s a stunner.
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