The Thing

A little while ago, Jim was looking in the store at used horror movies on sale. He called me and I proceeded to consult IMDB.COM to find the best movie for the price.

So, after much debate and consideration, we decided on John Carpenter's The Thing.


The movie had it all: John Carpenter (Halloween, The Fog, They Live, and Village of the Damned), Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, and it had GREAT ratings online. I had to see it.

The Thing is Carpenter's 1982 adaptation of the novella Who Goes There? which ultimately inspired the 1951 film The Thing From Another World. Basically, the movie is about a group of American scientists, who, upon finding some weird stuff that the Norwegian scientists left behind (including a dog being shot at for the first 5 minutes of the movie), are faced with a shape-shifting alien who is trying to imitate them, take them all over and destroy everything and everyone on the planet.

Here's the trailer:





I have to say before we start, that the more I think about this movie, the more I love it. The idea behind the movie is extremely clever...and terrifying. Basically: You can't trust anyone.

They are in complete isolation, kind of like in the Shining, yet there's an alien running around taking on shapes and ripping people to shreds.

There's also alot of blowtorching...


I mean...A LOT:






Basically, everyone starts becoming suspicious of one another, and the doctor, Wilford Brimley, loses his marbles and gets locked in a shed in isolation. Kurt Russell's character, who is a drunk helicopter pilot named MacReady and seriously, I loved him, becomes the next object of suspicion and he's locked out in the cold where his beard freezes.

Anyway, MacReady somehow makes it back into the complex and holds everyone at dynamite-point rather than gunpoint.

One of the greatest scenes in this movie then happens...one of the guys is so stressed out by what's going on that he has a heart attack and falls lifeless. The one doctor tries to revive him with the defibulator...and...:


DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!?!? OK, ok, let's recap...


AHHHHH!!!!

So MacReady decides to test everyone's blood with heat, because "The Thing" doesn't like heat (as illustrated above by said blowtorching)...so...see the guy on the right?

Yeah, him. Well, his blood screams and runs away from the hot wire...and guess what..


AHHH!!!!

AHHHHHHHH!!!

Here's a great video clip of that entire scene:


The end of the movie turns into a very action packed ending sequence where Wilford Brimley has become a "Thing" and he was building a spaceship in the ground underneath his holding cell. The Thing and Kurt Russell have a final showdown...mano a alien-o. The final scene has Kurt Russell and one of the other guys, Childs, sit and have...what else-a drink...together as they distrust each other and await their frozen deaths.

Someone also put together what they consider to be the 3 best parts of the film on YouTube. The first two are great...the scene with the dogs and the scene with Bennings. The 3rd one I already put up here, so go check out the other two if you want to see some more awesome The Thing clips.

This movie is great. For some 1982 special effects, I thought it was fantastic. Also, Kurt Russell's beard is spectacular.


**Special thanks to Kooshmeister for these great movie stills**