What Is BlobFest?
BlobFest is the yearly celebration of the 1958 Steve McQueen horror film The Blob. It’s held in Phoenixville, Pa., the home of the Colonial Theater, which the Blob attacks in the campy shocker flick.
City Park Bandshell concert, #Blobfest top this weekend's events roundup https://t.co/Z5jFWqcOVO via @ReadingEagle
— The Colonial Theatre (@colonialtheatre) July 7, 2021
Horror film fans descend on tiny Phoenixville for one weekend every summer. Restaurants are packed, vendors sell everything Blob-related you can imagine, and the weekend culminates in hundreds of screaming people running from the Colonial Theatre, recreating the scene in The Blob where panicked movie-goers flee the human-consumin’ blob.
USA The ‘run out’ scene from the film The Blob is re-enacted at the Colonial Theater during Blobfest 2017 pic.twitter.com/CGXlAzvUUf
— Boateng Duka Kofi (@DukaKofi) July 16, 2017
Virtual Blobfest? Why?
My family attends BlobFest every year. It’s a hoot. Two years ago I got tipsy slurping Blob-tinis. For the second year in a row, BlobFest was “virtual,” despite COVID-19 restrictions being all but gutted nationwide. Phoenixville’s Bridge St., home to the BlobFest, the merchants, and most of the Blob-related hoopla, has been blocked off to auto traffic all summer. Normally Bridge street is packed with thousands of horror film aficionados. This year it was quiet, even for the usually festive Phoenixville. My family went anyway.
This weekend is Blobfest. It will again be virtual, and while I’ll be watching along, I can’t say I don’t miss being there for all on the blobby goodness
Hope it returns to its on-site location next year ♥️ pic.twitter.com/RqvFAG4snG
— Pumpkin923 (@Pumpkin923) July 9, 2021
I was in Phoenixville six weeks ago for a gig. On Saturday afternoon, the town was packed. Yet this weekend, outdoor restaurant tables remained empty for BlobFest. The weather was great and no one was here. Some businesses locked up at 4:00 p.m. The weather was great and no one was here.
The only hint of the Blob was the Blob pin worn by my niece.
This year there were no vendors, no crowds and no Blob-tinis. Whomever decided to decimate kitschy horror-fest and make this weekend “virtual” dropped the blob.
During my most recent rewatch of The Blob (1958), a memory resurfaced from when I first saw it when I was 6 or 7,for the following weeks after I was TERRIFIED of Jell-o or pudding. That shit stayed in the freezer. pic.twitter.com/4vqL77Epue
— Jake Lenburg (@spadearcherjake) July 8, 2021
The kooky yet catchy theme song for The Blob was written and recorded by “The Five Blobs”, a phantom group that was actually Burt Bacharach and a few studio musicians.
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