In this review I’m looking at the John Carpenter’s 1982 remake of The Thing. This film can be summed up by this popular saying: “The shit hits the fan”. END OF REVIEW.
Ok I will review this a bit more properly. The film stars Kurt Russell as MacReady, who is stationed in the Antarctic with a bunch of scientist blokes who almost all have beards. The film starts with some Norwegian going ape shit and trying to shoot a dog and wounds one of Kurt Russell’s bearded science friends called Bennings. Then the Norwegian bloke is shot, but he’s not wounded…he’s DEAD.
Kurt Russell then goes investigates the Norwegian base and finds everybody dead. The Norwegians have stumbled across a crashed UFO and the team come across a twisted grotesque monster with element of human anatomy.
They decide to leave the stray dog that the Viking man tried to shoot with the dog with their pack dogs. They all growl and back away from the stray, no they aren’t racist, they know something bad is going to go down. And these dogs are right the new dog inverts itself, split open and tentacles shoot out its back. That’s right, you heard me, go on read that sentence again. This new alien dog kills some of the other dogs. The team come and see and decide “AHH ALIEN THING AHH AHH BURN IT DEAD” and torch it.
Blair is wisely badger of a man who is also the principle scientist on the team. He does an autopsy on the hideous dog monster and deduces that the alien life form attacks body cells and dissolves them, and then the alien copies the animal/person it’s just attacked, taking on their appearance. This means anyone could be an alien.
Then the film really becomes tense, all the characters start fighting because they are scared of who will be the next…..it turns out it’s Bennings. But MacReady burns the shit out of Bennings before the alien completely takes over him. They realise the alien is spreading and every one of them is at risk.
Wisely badger of a scientist Blair is sat at his computer watching how the alien cells attack and imitate the cells of its victim. The computer programme shows that the odds of other members of the team being an alien are 75%. He then types in what would happen if the alien got into contact with civilisation. The answer the world would be infected after a day.
One question, who the fuck designed this software?! In 1982 when computer technology was in its infancy who designed a programme telling the likelihood of the world’s demise due to an alien that destroys then imitates there cells. I bet it was you Blair you weird old bugger.
Anyway Blair goes nuts, scuttling around in his parka killing the rest of the dogs and destroying the helicopters. He probably would have done this even if they weren’t being attacked by an alien. He gets a pistol taking pot shots at the walls burbling angrily like some drunk. The team then lock him up in a shed because they think he is a senile old bastard. Even though locking a man in a shed in the Antarctic, I’m surprised he doesn’t freeze to death.
Now the film becomes a series of grouser and grouser ways the alien tries to take on people. Slowly more and more people are infected by the alien and die. They keep on burning aliens with scant disregard for the fuel they are using.
I’d like to review the rest of this film but it’s really something to watch and not just read about. The effects in this film are mind blowing and jaw dropping. I don’t understand why people say CGI is mind blowing, because it seems like nothing compared to how awesome the effects make you gasp in this film. I really can’t some up how fucking awesome they are, just go watch this film. Also this film is really claustrophobic, they are trapped in the Antarctic and cornered off in there base. This only helps build the tension. You really don’t know who will be an alien next; you are with the characters guessing who it will be. The characters in this film are good and many say some really funny one-liners but they are nothing terrific, most of them just cannon fodder for the alien. But as they get nervous, angry and paranoid, attacking each other, then the acting really excels.
I haven’t seen the original but it can’t get much better than this, especially for effects. Most people agree that this is one case were the remake is better than the original. There are some references to the original; the title card is the same and Norwegian ‘footage’ is clips from the old film.
This is an amazing horror film and one that really stands out. I very much recommend it. It has a fast pace, paranoid characters, amazing effects this film really stands out. It is jaw dropping, but can still be summed up by the saying “shit hits the fan” END OF REVIEW
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