Shortly before my sixth birthday, I made the mistake of watching the 1956 movie The Blob on TV. Horror films never bothered me before; my oldest sister had explained that they were make-believe, after all.

But the Blob was a new kind of monster, a postmodern monster.

In a confusing scene of the film, the Blob attacks an audience in a movie theater. To my young mind, the audience in the movie The Blob was actually watching the movie The Blob, when suddenly the Blob (who, it should be pointed out, was an alien life form) emerged from the movie -- oozed right out of the screen! -- and attacked them!

In other words, the Blob was a movie monster capable of jumping out of its movie.

I reasoned that if the Blob could escape from the movie-within-the-movie, then the Blob could escape from the movie The Blob into my world. I further deduced that since The Blob was being broadcast on television, and millions of people were watching, the Blob surely must have oozed out of one of those TV sets and must, therefore, now be on the loose in my neighborhood.