Beware! The Blob

'Beware! The Blob' is a 1972 horror movie, and a sequel to 1958's The Blob. It was directed by Larry Hagman, later known for playing J.R. Ewing on Dallas, making this the only movie that Hagman directed.

Plot
An oil worker unknowingly retrieves a frozen sample of the Blob from the arctic, and brings it home to be examined. When his wife takes it out of their freezer, it thaws out, devours them both, and begins eating people in the nearby town. Meanwhile, two teenagers try to warn the authorities about the danger posed by the Blob.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) The main plot is just a carbon-copy of the first movie, with the Blob going around snacking on innocent victims, and two teenagers trying to raise the alarm, but constantly being ignored.
 * 2) It doesn't do much to improve the first movie's problem of people constantly having to behave like complete idiots in order to let themselves be killed by the slow-moving Blob.
 * 3) The tone is incredibly inconsistent. Executive producer Jack H. Harris wanted to make something darker and gorier than the first movie, but director Larry Hagman thought the concept of a blob going around and eating people was just too silly to take seriously, and so cast a bunch of comedic actors he was friends with, then let them improvise their own dialogue. This means that the movie goes back and forth between incredibly mean-spirited scenes such as people's pets being eaten by the Blob, and then some random character delivering a comedic monologue for a few minutes before they also get eaten.
 * 4) All of the main characters are completely generic and forgettable. The only ones who stand out in any way are the "guest stars" who are improvising their own dialogue, and even then, only because they're pretty much playing themselves.
 * 5) As per usual for a horror movie of this type, the authorities are depicted as being completely useless and ineffectual jerks. Even for 1972, this was incredibly cliched, especially since the first movie also did it.
 * 6) * The authorities also continue to refuse to believe in the Blob, or even that there's any sort of danger, well after it should become apparent that dozens of townspeople are being killed.
 * 7) Bad acting throughout. Half of the cast members feel completely lifeless, while the other half are just hamming it up for laughs.
 * 8) Poor cinematography, with most of the scenes being under-lit.
 * 9) The music score is produced entirely with a primitive synthesizer in an attempt to sound futuristic, but just sounds extremely cheesy and dated.
 * 10) Even the ending is just a repeat of the first movie's ending. The Blob gets frozen at a ridiculously fast speed as well.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The actual effects used for the Blob are far better than in the first movie, and show it much more convincingly engulfing its victims.
 * 2) Much faster pacing and a higher bodycount than the first movie.
 * 3) A lot of the improvised comedy scenes are actually pretty funny, even if they don't have much to do with the main storyline.