The Thing (DVD)

*** The following review was written in September 2000. I have left the review untouched but have placed an update at the end to cover any changes since it was written. *** In 1938, John W. Campbell Jr. wrote the science-fiction thriller "Who Goes There?". In 1950 it was brought to the big screen as "The Thing From Another World" and was one of the first films to feature a monster from space but, due to the difficulties of portraying the shapeshifting alien of the book, the filmmakers instead chose to give the creature the ability to reproduce itself. In 1981, John Carpenter - best known for directing the ...  Read the complete review

John Carpenter once commented that “you’ll never see anything like The Thing again”. Unless old Johnny boy allows for a remake (the treatment many of his earlier films are now receiving) or a much discussed sequel, this statement is likely to hold true for quite some time. Since its release in 1982, the whole bastion of the horror genre has tried, and failed, to deliver anything as eye-opening, visually perplexing, beguiling, claustrophobic, tense, shocking, horrifying or superbly scripted and acted as Carpenter’s re-imaging of Howard Hawks’ 1951 flick ‘The Thing From another World’. Not bad for a remake, huh? An alien ship crash lands in Antarctica over a ...  Read the complete review

A remake of the 1951 original, John Carpenter's The Thing is a superb horror film centered around a group of researchers in a remote post in the Antarctic who discover that their closest neighbours, a group of Norwegian scientists, have all either killed eachother or commited suicide, and study of their video records reveal that weeks before their demise they discovered what appears to be a huge alien craft buried under the ice. Without giving too much away, it turns out that they recovered something that was not dead but merely frozen in the ice; a bizarre and terrifying shapeshifting lifeform that assimilates its victims in the most hideous way imaginable ...  Read the complete review

John Carpenter's The Thing, a remake of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World, which in turn was based upon the John W Campbell novella Who Goes There?, is exactly what you come to expect from Mr Carpenter: pure awesomeness. The story revolves around an unnamed extraterrestrial life force, whose ship crash-landed in Antarctica leaving the body to freeze into dormancy. Of course, that was before a Norwegian research team dug it up again. Soon enough Kurt Russell's motley crew of American researchers find themselves accommodating an unwelcome guest, a shape shifter who can fatally absorb and imitate any living organism. Before long dogs are growing ...  Read the complete review

I recently saw this film for the first time in years. I'd forgotten just how great it is. This is how horror films should be made. It uses an old horror standby (group of people stuck in isolated location with supernatural threat - see also Alien, Friday 13th, Blair Witch and most of the best Dr Who stories) but makes such inventive use of it that you forget how well-worn the central premise is. It's a remake of an atmospheric 1950s horror movie, The Thing From Another World. In that film an Antarctic base full of enthusiastic, upstanding Americans is menaced by an almost indestructible alien menace. Through a mixture of teamwork and good, old fashioned ...  Read the complete review