Appropriately, this year’s Blobfest celebration in Phoenixville kicked off last Friday, July 13th. Blobfest celebrates and commemorates the filming of the original Blob with Steve McQueen in the 50s. It was shot in and around the western suburbs of Philadelphia. The final confrontation with the Blob takes place at the Downingtown Diner, but it’s most iconic scene was captured right in the heart of Phoenixville at the Colonial Theatre.
After making a movie snack out of the projectionist, it oozes out into the audience. The survivors run out of the front doors of the theater screaming in terror. Friday night’s event kicks off the weekend-long celebration with a re-enactment. This year, tickets for the run-out were sold out a month ahead of time. Nonetheless, the For Zombies team was able to score a few.
We happened to win two distinctions in this year’s Blobfest short film competition for Blobageddon with both the judges’ vote and the fan favorite vote. The short film is on the right-hand side of the page listed among our YouTube videos. The award came with a few free tickets and we were able to bring our friends and neighbors along. Putting the film together was more work than we originally anticipated back in March, but seeing it up on the big screen with a few hundred people in the audience made it all worth it.
The Beast from Twenty Zillion Years Ago was a worthy competitor. It received an honorable mention and was played first. The Infectious Blob won in the 12-18 age category, then came time for ours. Just as the prior film ended, someone yelled out “Blobageddon!” and it didn’t come from our group. We knew we had at least one fan who’d already seen it.
We were called to stage to receive our award and groaned our acceptance and appreciation behaving ourselves all the while. No audience members were eaten.
And here’s the proof it was screened before our largest audience to date.
Blobageddon now has its own IMDB page and has been screened at the Trenton Arts All Night Film Festival and will be screened next month at the Mascara and Popcorn festival in Montreal.
Blobfest is one of those wonderful events where you can walk around as a zombie and no one seems to think it’s odd. The next day we were among Gort (The Day the Earth Stood Still), a Creature from the Black Lagoon, various tiki monsters, a Blob cheerleader and a few fellow undead. We entered the costume contest and rightfully lost to more worthy competitors. Clearly, we’re better film makers than we are costume designers. It did afford the opportunity to make a few contacts and encourage participation in our comedy-horror short film project in November. By the way, we have an open call for an independent short film. Just in case you missed it, it’s linked at the top of the page under “Want to be in a Zombie Movie?”
We’ll leave you with a few images from our misadventures at the event.