Review a movie that never existed.

[Svengoolie 3]

Ok, simple rules for this. Make up a movie that was never made and write a review.

The 4d man vs the Blob. (1961)

B movie maestro Jack Harris reportedly made the 4D man with the advance he was given to make the Blob. Both movies had certain similarities, like very cheap effects often involving photographs being filmed, and ended with a question mark.

It was not surprising Harris would combine these 2 movies to make what many regarded as his best movie, the return of blob and the 4d man, in 1961.

As the movie opens dastardly agents for an unnamed foreign power *koff* russia*koff* attack an arctic base, murdering it's AMERICAN personnel in cold blood (ha ha) in order to steal the blob as part of a dastardly enemy *koff*russian*koff* plan to destroy america.

(How the russians plan to use the blob as a weapon against america without risking it consuming the world is never explained. Apparently those stupid commie rats never thought their plan thru.  )

Meanwhile in a deep forest a bunch of hobos are having some stew and moonshine when a ragged, very aged man stumbles out of the woods.  He is seen from behind. The hobos take pity on the wretched stranger and offer him food. Without hesitation the stranger steps thru the hobos in rapid succession, causing them to gasp, scream, drop dead and age rapidly.The stranger turns and is revealed as Robert Lansing, AKA the 4d man.

A US military cargo plane, flown by those accented but unnamed evil furriners, flies thru a storm, and a lightning bolt grazes it. The stupid evil crew things all is well but doesn't realize the electrical surge blew out the freezer unit in the cargo bay. Boy we know where that's going.

Meanwhile the 4d man is in mad scientist mode, working on a way to stabilize his condition and allow himself to feed off electrical power rather than human life energy. He has, with undefined resources, set himself up with a lab in a remote house who occupants have helped extend his life. Insanely talking to the withered corpses he tells them hopefully he won't have to resort to such "unpleasantness" much longer and how scientific progress usually came at a price, like Marie Curie's death by radiation poisoning. It was nothing personal, he casually assures the corpses as he works on some arcane technology.

On board the plane, blob unfreezes and has itself an exotic russian breakfast, flavored with vodka and terrible accents. The plane, out of control, flies towards california. (OH NO! NOT CALIFORNIA!)

Cut to The 4d man's brother, Tony Nelson, (No, not the guy who found a genie in a bottle a few years later!) and his new wife,Linda.  (Lee Meriwether) They are trying to reconstruct the super metal cargonite as was mentioned in the original 4d man, as such a super metal will give America a tremendous military advantage over "the commies".  Tony is having a hard time as many of the people who created cargonite, especially his brilliant but bitter and insane brother are dead or... We remember that the 4d man's fate was uncertain at the end of the movie. (Stealing Scott's formula wasn't as easy as stealing his girl,  hey,  Tony?)

Model plane crashes in california desert, and the top billed star, the blob, makes it full appearance. (it had only been seen from it's own POV whyile it ate the reds on the plane. Military forces who had tracked the plane arrive and see it emerging. Machine guns, rockets and even flamethrowers do not stop it.

The california desert is to hot to freeze it in and it is too mobile. Tony thinks a massive cargonite cell could trap it  if it were lured or driven into it but needs the formula. Meanwhile bodies of dead hobos are discovered and linked to the 4d man.

Informed of his survival, Linda makes a desperate appeal to Scott over the media to help save the human race. Scott conveniently catches her appeal. He picks up a phone. He is brought to the couple, his former lover and brother, and offers to help but is visibly aging, needing more human live energy. In a cold yet noble scene an army sergeant volunteers to give his life to keep scott alive to finish the cargonite cell. Scott seems hesistant to take the life of a man volunteering for such an end, and closes his eyes before driving his hand into the volunteer.

The military is taking advantage of the blob's mindless nature, luring it back towards the desert with low  flying helicopters full of volunteers that it keeps pursuing in a, well, mindless fashion.

Cargonite must be easy to mass produce because with Scot's help a massive (matte painted)  cargonite chamber that should contain the blob is built in the desert apparently in sort order.

The blob is lured towards it when things go fubar.  An evil commie saboteur is at the scene and sabotages everything (Boy, maybe McCarthy was right...)
The mass of red silicone, same prop used in the original movie, btw, gets a quick meal when the commie shoots at the copter engine to make it crash. Those were good men... Scott sees the men being eaten alive by the horrible blob and suddenly realizes he is an even worse monster than it is. It's a mindless mass of protoplasm, he chose to become what he did, his horrible epiphany reveals to him. (His realization doesn't stop him from killing the commie b*st*rd to take some of the grey makeup out of his hair,  tho.  We all know killing commies is OK. )

Tony and linda are cut off and forced to flee into the cargonite chamber thru it's one entrance, the blobs oozes after them.

Seeing his brother and former lover trapped and about to be slimed to death, Scott snarls, screams in rage and runs straight into the massive blob, phasing thru it.  Linda and Tony are shocked to see scott come thru the cargonite chamber doorway, emerging from the mass of blob that was just beginning to ooze thru it. Collapsing, Scott gasps he hoped to kill the blob by draining its life energy but there was too much, still the blob apparently didn't like being phased thru one iota. it's surface texture has changed slightly, indicating possible damage to it's "protoplasmic molecular structure", according to Linda. Furthermore, big red apparently decides a Linda and tony combo isn't really worth going thru someone who can go thru it. It starts oozing away, slowly. Tony explains "Even mindless, it recognizes that you can hurt it, Scott! It's withdrawing from you like it withdraws from cold!" Maybe tony can get a job as Captain Obvious after he helps america beat the damn commies.

Scott escorts the newlyweds away from the blob which is moving a mite slower after being phased thru and having some of it's life energy slurped up by Scott. Scott tells tony and linda to flee, he intends to "Kill that damn thing no matter the cost!"  Tony looks in Scott's eyes and realizes what he's going to do. He heads off yelling at everyone to "clear out, run! There's gonna be an explosion!"  Linda still feels for Scott, obviously, especially after being saved form a really horrible death by him, but knows it's for the best. (she did shoot him in the first movie, after all.) She looks at him and says "Scott, I..I wish... things could..." Scott kills the awkward moment with a line that would be copped by Harrison ford decades later "I know." then tells her to run.

Extras in army uniforms begin piling into jeeps and trucks, considerately taking linda and tony with them.

Scott is busy herding the 4d man avoiding blob away from the fleeing crew. As they drive off he takes a deep breath and runs thru the blob again, which convulses violently and begins to steam. Scott emerges, glowing faintly and obviously in pain. He looks at the steaming, bubbling blob and realizes it's still alive. With a roar of fury he charges into it and does not come out. The blob begins to violently boil and crumble into a heap of black chunks looking somewhat like ground up charcoal bricks. As it does a bright light is seen in the middle of it's collapsing form. It is scott, glowing brilliantly, doubled over in agony but still on his feet. As the blob becomes a flattened heap of black rubble, scott raises his face up to the sky and his eyes snap open. Shafts of white light shoot up into the sky from them and his mouth as he barks out a short, pained, victorious laugh. He then explodes in a rotoscoped animation of stock nuclear test footage.

Later, Linda, Tony and a few military types stand looking down into a deep black crater. A colonel or something tells tony "Your brother did horrible things, but in the end he reclaimed his humanity and probably saved millions, maybe hundreds of millions of lives." Tony nods.

The end. No question mark.

Robert Lansing's acting really carried this movie. This was no mean feat since he was often acting to a mass of red silicone. His facial expressions as he realizes with horror how much of a monster he has become was a very powerful scene. The effects were a little better than either of the original movies, but only a bit. How the russians planned to use the blob as a weapon was never explained, but this was still a solid B movie and outgrossed both it's predecessors. I give it a 5/5