A small bubble of jelly tumbles dramatically from the sky, landing in the woods just outside Main Street USA, and swiftly begins absorbing and digesting the town's population. Naturally, the only ones to understand this predicament are a small tribe of no-good teenagers, and the crusty old grown-ups don't listen to a word until it's almost too late.

It's a classic sci-fi trope, from the heart of Hollywood's cheap, silly, sci-fi boom, and that's always fun to watch... to a certain extent. After jumping right in with a first-scene asteroid crash, though, The Blob loses its way fairly quickly, dragging its feet through all manner of slow, dry, window-gazing scenes while the monster gets busy somewhere decidedly off-screen.

The attraction is a blob of man-eating goo, but the film seems more concerned with the history of kid-cop-parent relations in this sleepy little borough. It drags on forever, until it's suddenly time to wrap things up and then we rush through all the good stuff in a quick, delirious blur. It's in that quick, vibrant sprint that we enjoy all the best shots - a stampede to escape the theater, a fully-engulfed diner - but they're mere glances, and none seem blessed with the right amount of gravitas.

The history books tell us that this was never intended to be a hallmark of the genre, and that much is clear. The studio didn't think much of it because, apart from a brilliant title and a far-leftfield concept, there really isn't all that much to think about. It's an empty, abrupt, stupid, yet inexplicably magnetic, time capsule. A short, simple novelty at the best of times.