SusiDee34
"The Thing ~ yeehaww!"
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A 1982 science fiction-horror film directed by John Carpenter.
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Rating:
Pros: .
+1
Cons: ..
I can accept space ships crashing into the Arctic. I can accept strange, weird creatures that invade your body. I can accept the fact that once these creatures invade you, no one can tell you aren't the you that you were but now you are a them. I can accept exploding bodies that split in half and expel some multi-legged slime ball thing that invades your camp.
I can accept the fact that once your body splits in half and your head falls off of your body, the creature takes over your head and turns it into some type of eight-legged spider looking thing that scurries around the room. What I can't accept is Kurt Russell riding rough shod around the frozen tundra in that friggin cowboy hat! What was up with that?
John Carpenter, perhaps an alien creature in his own right, has taken a perfectly good monster flick from the 50's and adapted it to a cinematographic shock feast that has such an incredibly boring ending you are ashamed for it. You actually feel pity for the movie and it's inability to secure a story line.
Movies of this type are entirely different from movies like Scream or Halloween or even Godzilla or King Kong. With your man monster' movies, the man is the bad guy, the killer, the creature. Perfectly acceptable. Hell, people kill people every day. That's a given. With your mega monster type movie, these are too unbelievable to be believed, these things aren't gonna happen so they are just nothing but pure fun and games. Regular monsters are ok.
Now take a space alien type monster, this is a possibility. WE travel through space, so why can't other people' travel through space? And since other people' can travel, they can also drop off little treats for us. Ok, perfectly acceptable. You gotta expect that sooner or later one of these aliens that the government keeps swearing don't exist is gonna show up sitting next to you at dinner some time. But, darnit, if you are gonna make a movie about them at least have the decency to MAKE a movie about them!
Carpenter totally ticked me off with this gig. The movie is 108 minutes long and he uses 100 of it to slam this creature at you fifty ways from Sunday and then lets you fall asleep at the end. On top of that, it was so graphic that it was sickening. On a scale of 1-10, I give the shock factor about a 6, I jumped approximately 6 times during the movie. Not from fear but from the sheer suddenness of the attacks and from the grotesqueness of the attacks. The autopsy scene alone sent me right to my porcelain buddy to hurl up my dinner.
And all those exploding skulls, arms being torn off, dogs getting absorbed and then getting turned inside out - descriptive enough for you? The movie was unbearably bad. Goriness aside, though, there are a few times when you will absolutely laugh out loud at the absolutely ridiculous scenes with this monster - that head walking spider thing being one of them!
The only question I had was this......how did Wilford Brimley get so old since 1982 while Kurt Russell still looks like he is 17 years old? If Brimley hadn't spoken, I wouldn't have known this was the same dude! Man, in my opinion, do not - I repeat, do not - eat Quaker Oatmeal, because it has aged Wilford Brimley terribly.
Recommended:
Yes
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peterww
June 07, 2012
Yes. Well done on a terrific slam of a movie that is inexplicably revered. And that's a great final line.
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A remake that rivals the original, strange goings on and murder at an Arctic scientific settlement after the discovery of alien significance. Loved this "thing". Great job by John Carpenter.
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review by NicanorJourney.
February 09, 2009
One of my favorite sci-fi, and horror films has always been Ridley Scott's 1979 classic Alien, and for a while now I've been looking for a film that would make for a good late-night double feature (excluding the sequel, Aliens). Of course, when I searched I mostly found rip-offs that couldn't hold a candle to the levels intrigue, and suspense set by Scott's film; in fact, most of them were simple rip-offs of Alien. I finally found this version of The Thing after having liked … more
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Susi Dawson (SusiDee34)
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About this movie
Director John Carpenter and special makeup effects master Rob Bottin teamed up for this 1982 remake of the 1951 science fiction classicThe Thing from Another World, and the result is a mixed blessing. It's got moments of highly effective terror and spine-tingling suspense, but it's mostly a showcase for some of the goriest and most horrifically grotesque makeup effects ever created for a movie. With such highlights as a dog that splits open and blossoms into something indescribably gruesome, this is the kind of movie for die-hard horror fans and anyone who slows down to stare at fatal traffic accidents. On those terms, however, it's hard not to be impressed by the movie's wild and wacky freak show. It all begins when scientists at an arctic research station discover an alien spacecraft under the thick ice, and thaw out the alien body found aboard. What they don't know is that the alien can assume any human form, and before long the scientists can't tell who's real and who's a deadly alien threat. Kurt Russell leads the battle against the terrifying intruder, and the supporting cast includes Richard Masur, Richard Dysart, Donald Moffat, and Wilford Brimley. They're all playing standard characters who are neglected by the mechanistic screenplay (based on the classic sci-fi story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell), but Carpenter's emphasis is clearly on the gross-out effects and escalating tension. If you've got the ...
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Cast:
Kurt Russell,
Wilford Brimley,
T.K. Carter,
David Clennon,
Keith David,
Joel Polis,
Donald Moffat,
Richard A. Dysart
Director:
John Carpenter
Genre:
Horror,
Sci-Fi
Release Date:
1982
MPAA Rating:
R
DVD Release Date:
September 9, 1998 ; October 26, 2004
Runtime:
108 minutes
Studio:
Universal Studios,
Universal Pictures
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