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Blobfest, the annual celebration of the 1958 filming of the B-horror flick “The Blob” in Phoenixville, will be a very different celebration this year.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the 21st annual celebration on Friday and Saturday, July 10-11, will be “Blobfest 2020: The Home Edition,” an online version of what is normally a very hands-on, on-site event.
Gone this year will be the signature Run Out, a participatory recreation of the most famous scene from the movie.
The film, which stars Steve McQueen, was filmed around the Pennsylvania town. The most notable scene features the Colonial Theatre with a crowd fleeing through its doors as an alien creature (the blob in the title) slowly spreads throughout it, filling its cracks and crannies.
A limited number of pre-ticketed participants re-enact that scene each year to kick off Blobfest. The tickets sell out almost as soon as they go on sale in late May each year.
The mad dash won’t be happening this year, at least not with a crowd of participants.
The 2020 Run Out will consist of online videos of Run Outs from years past and home Run Out videos submitted by fans.
They will be part of the Friday Night Stay-In show, which also will feature a virtual versions of the annual opener, including the Shortys Short Films, Miss Blobfest 2020 Universe and costume contests.
Saturday will feature online screenings of “The Blob” at noon, 3 and 7:30 p.m.; Roger Corman’s “A Bucket of Blood” at 1:30 p.m.; “The Little Shop of Horrors at 4:30 p.m.; and “House on Haunted Hill” at 9 p.m.; and the Spook Show featuring Daughter of Horror with Mr. Lobo at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets for the online version of Blobfest are available through the Colonial Theatre website.
In announcing the changed plan for 2020 on the theater’s Facebook page, the Association for the Colonial Theatre, a nonprofit corporation that re-opened the theater in 1999, urged, “Help us stay open for Blobfests to come with your continued support.”
Coincidentally “The Blob” is one of the movies offered on the new HBO Max app, which launched today.