After the phenomenal box-office and critical success of David Cronenberg 's 1986 remake of The Fly , a series of big-budget remakes of '50s horror favorites rode in on its coattails in the late 1980s — though none managed to rise above mere camp clones of their elders, albeit garnished with modern makeup effects in an attempt to draw modern teen horror-junkies. One remake that managed to live up to its cheesy inspiration was Chuck Russell 's version of The Blob , in which the title goo crashes to earth and promptly begins digesting the residents of a small California town while growing to gargantuan proportions. The clean-cut teen hero originally portrayed by Steve McQueen (his first starring role) is replaced here with a rebellious outsider ( Kevin Dillon ) whose preppie rival ( Donovan Leitch ) for the affections of the cute heroine ( Shawnee Smith ) is quickly eliminated by the all-consuming space-gelatin. No sooner has the plasma menace set up house in the town sewers when a shadowy government Blob Squad shows up under the direction of the grandfatherly Dr. Meddows ( Joe Seneca ), to clean up the mess... or not. This high-spirited remake replaces the '50s "Daddy-O" conventions of the original with '80s cynicism — not even likeable characters are spared from the slaughter — and anti-government sentiment. It also pushes the gore envelope in ways unavailable to its low-budget parent — e.g. the scene in which one victim is sucked through a sink drain was only hinted at in the 1958 film, but here viewers are treated to the entire bone-crunching ordeal. Though the quality of blob effects seems inversely proportional to the creature's size (some of the climactic "wall-of-blob" footage is painfully cheap-looking), the end result is more blob for the monster-movie fan's dollar. — Cavett Binion