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Alien Nation

In the Blobosphere, the horror of 1958 lives on.

Sep 15, 2008, Vol. 14, No. 01 • By SHAWN MACOMBER
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Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

Unlike many slouching toward middle age, at its 50th birthday bash the eponymous gelatinous mass of the 1958 science fiction camp classic The Blob appeared to have actually lost weight, taking up little more than half the shiny five-gallon Union Carbide steel bucket it has long called home.

Not bad for a ruby silicone dollop whose life story was once nearly titled The Glob That Girdled the Globe, although it is worth noting that a human flesh diet adheres to Dr. Atkins's low carb recommendations.

The loss of magnitude has not, however, translated into a loss of stature: During the ninth annual BlobFest, a steady stream of devoted fans climb the stairs to the third floor of the Colonial Theater to glimpse the amorphous alien, inert as a tiny placid cranberry sauce lake, in the very building where the famous sequence of the blob providing a late-night audience unexpectedly corporeal scares was shot. Harry Houdini and Mary Pickford both performed at the Colonial in its vaudeville heyday, but no appearance is as celebrated as this bucket-dweller's.

"When I first saw The Blob, I liked that it wasn't Frankenstein or one of those movies where the monster is some guy in a rubber suit," says Wes Shank, the self-described "caretaker" of the blob, shooting a quick apologetic look over at Ricou Browning signing autographs a few yards away. Browning, a burly man who donned the scales and gills for the 1954 classic Creature from the Black Lagoon (screened in 3D at BlobFest), appears for a moment prepared to mount a defense of rubber-suited villains. He opts for silent deference instead. This is, after all, the coagulated glop's day; let it have some birthday glory.

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