IT WONT DIE…The Thing
June 25, 1982
Rated R
109 minutes
John Carpenter
Universal Studios
Horror Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley
4 out of 5 One of the most tense films I have ever seen, the monster looks awesome too
We start our dark adventure in the stark contrast of the white frozen Antarctic snow fields. A couple of crazy flying Dutchmen are bent on killing a dog, and making a poor show of it. They chase the damn thing for the entirety of the opening credits on a helicopter, soon they come across an American camp site. Deciding that these men were bonkers, the militant liaisons promptly shoots one of them in the head but not before the poor sap blows up his partner in canine killing crimes. Just like that, the mystery of why they were chasing the dog goes unnoticed. Little do they know, the cute pooch is a beastly thing from another world, that can replicate living tissue and is down right mean. It begins to off them systematically until the crew wised up and started killing each other in hopes that they won’t become the next victim.
The Thing is the kind of Horror flick that will attack you from all angles. The tension building in the crew making you antsy, then when you are about to burst , the Thing attacks in the most ferocious ,brutal and gory way. You keep getting sidetracked by events in the movie that the “all of a sudden” feeling stays fresh throughout the experience. John Carpenter uses the audiences own tension to build the film, by making us tense, the raw harshness that the Special Fx is all the more effective. Kudos to Rob Bottin and his crew for making some of the most memorable monsters and abominations to ever come out of molding clay and red food dye. The attention to detail in the FX and set pieces was superb. Every tendon, every out-of-place fang and tuft of hair gives me the heeby jeebys just writing about it. Russell and David have excellent on camera chemistry, like an understanding of each other without liking the other too much. The rest of the all male cast worked well together making the tension rise and fall very fluidly. The writing by Bill Lancaster was true to the source material and delivered very well on-screen. Contrary to popular belief , John Carpenter’s The Thing is in fact not a remake of the ’51 classic “the Thing from Outer Space”,instead it is a retelling of the novella ‘Who goes there? ‘ by John W. Campbell J.R. The short story is the source for both films, but Carpenter’s is closer to source material than the ’51 movie. This means that this film is not a remake in the true meaning of the word. Furthermore, the recent ‘remake’ by the same name is not one either. The 2011 The Thing is a prequel, it ends with the Dutch-bros chasing the dog off into the distance. Both The Thing From Outer Space and The Thing(2011) come highly recommended but still are not as good, in this guys opinion, not as good as the John Carpenter version.
The first installment in John Carpenter’s Apocalypse trilogy comes highly recommended I’m gonna call it now, anything involving John Carpenter and Kurt Russell working together comes super recommended…. I see you are intrigued by this Apocalypse trilogy that you have never heard of. Stay tuned for the reviews on those in the days to follow.
