Movie Review: The Thing (1982)

[Dave Gray]

Premise: An alien, that takes the shape of whatever it kills, threatens to destory a stranded camp of scientists in the arctic....that is unless their own paranoia gets to them first.

Premise: Good

This movie had several things that I liked, but there were a few things that bothered me about it.  Overall, it's enjoyable, and had two pretty good scares.  It was also pretty short, at an hour and 45 minutes.  I like that, and I can allow for much more cheese in short period.  If you like alien movies, it's definitely worth seeing, and is a lot more psychological than most horror flicks.

*** SPOILERS ***
I was bothered in the speed and especially the manner in which Kurt Russel's character figured things out.  It was like an episode of Scooby-Doo.  One second, he'd be completely clueless, and the next he'd make some giant leap to a correct conclusion.  It happened on more than one occasion.

I was also really irritated by the computer program that showed the alien organism taking over the humans, and the projected death rate, and likliness of infection, etc.  ...what the hell was that all about?  Are we supposed to belive that the old dude created some kind of artificial intelligence in a few hours?  I understand that they needed a way to tell the audience that if "the Thing" got out, then we'd all be screwed, but I think that a simple conversation would've been adequate for that job.

[Sunstroke]

I list this among my favorites in the monster/alien movie genre. I believe I've seen it easily 50+ times. There aren't enough stars in the poll above to adequately do it justice in my eyes.

I agree with the film-flaw Dave noted about the computer sim and projections. Every time I watch the movie, I shake my head at that point. A short conversation would have done it... I didn't see MacReady's rate of figuring out what little he actually did figure out as being too far beyond the realm of possibility to list it as a flaw. I did think a second flaw was when Dr Blair (Wilford Brimley) had already been "replicated" but was able to communicate to MacReady just like the old Dr Blair when MacReady came to check on him in the lockup (while Brimley was secretly building an escape craft).

Best scene in the movie...and one of my favorite special effects scenes ever, was when Clark's alien replication was getting roasted by the flamethrower, and the neck stretches over the edge of the table, separates and drops Clark's head on the floor, where it immediately sprouts 6 legs, two eye-stalks and skitters out the door, prompting the great quote from Childs as he turned to watch the human head-spider go out the door: "You've gotta be fukkin' kidding me!"

I have a mini version of that head spider on my computer here, as well as the main one where the alien went apeshit and grew to humongous size with all the different human/dog heads morphing out its skin.

Groovy stuff...excellent movie!

[Dave Gray]

Best scene in the movie...and one of my favorite special effects scenes ever, was when Clark's alien replication was getting roasted by the flamethrower, and the neck stretches over the edge of the table, separates and drops Clark's head on the florr, where it immediately sprouts 6 legs, two eye-stalks and skitters out the door, prompting the great quote from Childs as he turned to watch the human head-spider go out the door: "You've gotta be fukkin' kidding me!"

Yeah, that was a great line.

Both Ms. Dave and I agreed that the cool scenes were especially cool.  I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars.  My favorite part was when MacReady was testing the blood samples.

Don't get me wrong -- a good movie, but I'm always thinking how I would've done it differently.

Also, regarding the Scooby-Doo comment, I'm okay with MacReady figuring those things out, but I always thought that the pacing in those scenes was a little weird.  ...some exposition would've work, as he kind of talked it out to another one of the guys.

[bsfins]

This is just one of those movies that I don't get tired of watching....

[AZ Fins Fan 55]

I have never seen it but after the great reviews I am definately going to check it out!!!!!

[TonyB0D]

[GUATARICCAN]

The greatest!! I was a little disappointed that Dave didn't like it as much as I thought he would, but oh well! Next Screamfest I'm looking for Stroke's spider head figure!