The Thing: 1982: +-: HRR: With the huge snow storm "Hercules" heading to the East Coast and slamming everyone with snow, take a moment to enjoy the warmth of your home and watch this movie. Not only is it set in the artic, but it's also one of the most gory and visually striking horror movies of it's time. So forget the cold and shoveling for now and see if you can watch his movie in the dark...
Although it's an early 80s movie, it still stands up rather well to contemporary horror movies in terms of the effects, makeup, and lighting. It definitely influenced other movies including Aliens & The Predator as you can see from the pics I posted. CGI hadn't been invented yet so all the creatures and aliens had to be real actors or animatronics. That didn't stop John Carpenter from creating an extremely effective and terrifying movie based on the novella by John Campbell Jr. This movie starts out creepy and then builds momentum to the point where it almost becomes unwatchable due to it's extreme gore. The interesting plot keeps you sufficiently focused though, even if you have to look away a few times!
Remind you of a certain movie based on Aliens?
The basic premise of the movie is a type of prisoner's dilemma in that the main characters in the movie, one of whom is Kurt Russell, don't know who the alien is controlling due to it's ability to imitate and metamorphose into the form of it's host and emulate it. This is one of the elements that resembles The Alien franchise because the alien uses the human, or other organic form, as it's host and then dominates it for it's own purposes. While controlling the host, the victim acts normally for awhile, but then goes completely insane before it becomes a revolting creature.
This element creates the psychological suspense that enhances the feel of the movie and makes the mood very tense. Once it starts to incorporate the grotesque makeup and special effects, the two elements really work well to make this movie memorable. Critics at the time commented that at times it was "over the top". Ebert called it "excessive" and gave it poor ratings. After it was released on video though, the effects and makeup made it a cult classic and it still has many devoted fans.
This was once a dog..
One of the creepiest scenes was when they open up the chest cavity
of one of the scientists and it becomes a mouth. Also, the scene with the dog was sufficiently evil. The Thing literally doesn't stop giving you horrifying deaths so if you want to get a sense for what scared people before CGI, this movie will definitely deliver.
The extremely gory "chest cavity" scene. Don't forget to brush after meals!
There is also the sense of claustrophobia because the scientists aren't able to spend much time outside of the cramped quarters due to the extreme artic temperatures. They are only able to take short excursions outside to look for the alien. So not only are you preoccupied by the sense of doom because of the cold, you are also struck with fear due to the fact that the alien is not completely understood and could be literally anywhere or inside anyone. I remember watching The Thing before Aliens came out and this premise was really effective. The "paranoia" effect perturbs the characters in the movie as it does the viewer to make it more engrossing.
Before Big Trouble in Little China, another Carpenter movie with Russell.
The movie climaxes in a scene where all the scientists are gathered together in order to find who the alien has controlled. Since you as the viewer don't know who it is, this scene is very effective in creating the "end game" scenario. I won't give the outcome away, nor give any more details of the movie, because the discovery element of this movie is what makes it special. The actors, especially Russell, are also effective because they are gloomy and morose, which adds to the suspense and dark premise. So stay in where it's warm, empathize for the characters in this movie, and watch it on an empty stomach!:::82%
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