THE THING 20th Anniversary - Give Up the Love for this CLASSIC! (1 Viewer)

[Scott Weinberg]

Ooooh. This thread was made for me. I L-O-V-E this movie from top to bottom. Andy said it's as close to perfect as a horror movie can get, and I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly.

People more intelligent and eloquent than myself have already adequately assessed why this movie is so DAMN GREAT, so I'll just say this:

If I could only bring 5 DVDs to the legendary 'desert island', this would absolutely be one of them.

I may have to watch it AGAIN this weekend. You guys got me all worked up here.

 

[Keith Paynter]

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The cheap chess computer was a Commodore PET (large display version - they were prominent in the late 70's and early 80's in schools and some homes when the sigle-sided 5-1/4" floppy disc and cassette tape were the primary sources of storage. My favorite game was a machine language version of Space Invaders that played just as good as the original. You got 8Kb of RAM in the standard models, and 16Kb in the deluxe models. Gotta love those green monochrome screens, and Commodore's BASIC was a great way to learn to write computer programs.
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I love this movie!

 

[Ashley Seymour]

The Thing has long been a favorite of mine. The 80's saw a string of four classic scare you to death horror films. The greatest compliment I can give to this film is that I rented it on tape to view on my 20" TV and in stereo. On was on the edge of the couch the whole time and had to take a deep breath when it was over. I would have loved to see it as a first run at a theater. The other film I saw this way was The Terminator and it had the same effect. Alien and Aliens were viewed on the big screen and the only difference is that my feet were more sweaty when it was over.
I second all the favorite scenes above but to add to the list I'll say my favorite part was the score. I hate in horror movies when they inject the light hearted music when the little kid shows up. This music let you know from the first beat till the end that no good was going to come to any of the characters. The suspense was how each one was going to meet their end.
Carpenter was way over the top of his form with this flick.
Every Holloween when I am giving out candy, both The Thing and Alien are playing in the background. It is not Holloween without them.

 

[Andy Olivera]

My favorite moment is, without a doubt, during the group's first encounter with the monster(the dogs). After the transformation and the whole team arriving at the cage, the shot where it is first revealed. It looks toward the camera and screams. I get chills during that scene no matter how many times I watch it.

Then, of course, there's the blood test sequence; one of, if not the, most masterfully directed scenes in any horror film.

Favorite line? Easy: "You gotta be fuckin' kidding!". It looks pretty bland on paper, but the delivery is absolutely perfect.

 

[oscar_merkx]

just saw this as well. Very creepy indeed
the documentary on the DVD is awesome and was great to see Rob Bottin move on to RoboCop as well.
So when is the original The Thing from Another World (James Arness) coming out on DVD ?

 

[Greg_Y]

I love this flick.

Can someone explain to me how a man that can make classics like Halloween & The Thing can now make such garbage like Escape From L.A., Village of the Damned, and Vampires? What happened?

 

[Stevan Lay]

A great, great picture. Better than 10 X-Files episodes put together.

Have to agree with Neil on the Blood Test scene. That was intense.

 

[Michael*K]

Wasn't this Carpenter's first film after Escape from New York? Man, two of my favorite films back-to-back.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

My favorite moment is, without a doubt, during the group's first encounter with the monster(the dogs).

Yup, awesome scene. One of the most impactful I can remember from any film.

I just hate how the 'thing' looks in the last scene. Looks like something that got rejected from Dr. Who.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Can someone explain to me how a man that can make classics like Halloween & The Thing can now make such garbage like this.

Sadly, I honestly believe he just got old.

 

[Ross Williams]

we never find out what it really looks like though do we? Part dog, part man, part thingy.

That's because it doesn't look like anything. It simply becomes whatever it takes over. That's what makes it so scary, that it can look exactly like your best friend. The final monster is an amalgamation of everything it's absorbed throughout the film.

 

[Eric Bass]

The Thing, easily one of my top favorite movies of all time. How often is it you come upon a movie where you wouldn't change anything...nothing is perfect but I'll be damned if The Thing isn't as close as a film can get. Not even taking into account the great story, it has some of the best character interaction I've ever seen.

Some of my favorite lines:

"Anyone messes with me and the whole camp goes!"

"What if we're wrong about him?"
"Well then we're wrong!!"

"From now on nobody gets out of my sight."

And what about the ending? Name me one more movie where:

15 minutes before the end of the film we already know everyone is going to die, regardless of who wins.


Well anyway, I could go on all day about this movie. It'd be nice to watch tonight, but I usually reserve it for nights when I snowed in during the dead of winter. Even though, being in the antartic as they are, technically it'd be summer here during their winter. That's another nifty little detail about this film. It was released in Summer 1982. Opens with "Winter, 1982". And one of the first lines we get from MacReady is "first goddamn week of winter." Well if today is the anniversary of the theatrical release, and we're in the first week of summer, then when the movie hit theaters it was the first week of summer 1982. Which would make it's theatrical debut the first week of winter in the southern hemisphere. Just an interesting little useless piece of information there.

 

[Chad R]

It may not be critically repsected, but it's been flattered in the best way by being copied.

One of the very first X-Files, "Ice" was basically a rip-off of "The Thing (although not specifically this movie). That having been one of the first episodes I saw I almost gave up on the show.

And of course there's "Faculty" where they snort the "drug" to determine if anyone of them is an alien. That's a blatant rip off.

I still dig "Halloween" more than this, but this is definitely number two on Carpenter's resume.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Seeing as how everyone participating in this thread clearly admires Carpenter's finest movies, I thought I'd throw out my ringing endorsement for what I believe to be his most criminally underrated movie ever:
The Fog
Now, everyone who just read those two words thought one of three things:
1. Yep, great ghost story!
2. Eh, not great. Perhaps I'll see it again someday.
3. I've been meaning to see that one forever but never got around to it.
If you haven't seen it, I'll be quite interested to hear your thoughts once the DVD hits the streets on 8/27. I don't want to steal any thunder away from the brilliant movie we're already discussing, but with all these Carpenter fans in one place...I couldn't resist.

 

[Jordan_E]

THE FOG

I'm dying to get my hands on this DVD! Talk about a PERFECT movie for the upcoming Halloween season. Some shocks, some gore, a great sense of dread in the form of the fog itself, and THAT ENDING! Talk about an all-Carpenter Halloween marathon this year: HALLOWEEN, THE FOG, THE THING, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS (yeah, I liked it), and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. Isn't a new version of DARKNESS coming?

 

[Justin_S]

I absolutely love THE FOG! It is definitely a classic, and is a huge favorite of mine, but if you ask me, I would say that Carpenter's most wrongfully underrated movie ever is the movie that is tied with THE THING as my favorite Carpenter film, that film being the masterpiece that is PRINCE OF DARKNESS.

 

[Jordan_E]

Not wanting to turn this into a Carpenter's Best thread, but PRINCE OF DARKNESS is very underrated! The music that runs throughout (one reason I want a 5.1 remix!), the overall creepiness of the piece (Cup O' Maggots, anyone?), and (once again) THAT ENDING! Do I see a pattern forming here?

 

[Jefferson Morris]

As a little kid, watching The Fog on late night TV, it absolutely scared the piss and shit out of me. Would it hold up? I'd be interested in giving it another spin to find out.

-- Jefferson Morris

P.S. I'll cement this thread's drift into a Carpenter appreciation fest by giving my enthusiastic thumbs up to the brilliant Dark Star - his first and still one of his best. There's another great, comic/nihilistic ending.

"I think I've found a way!"

 

[Jeff Pryor]

'The Thing'. Great movie. 20 years old, how time flies. My fav scene is when the doc gets his arms chomped off.

 

[Julie K]

As for most underrated I'll have to go with In the Mouth of Madness. I rank this just after The Thing. It's a wonderful homage to Lovecraft.
Dark Star is another favorite. The beach ball alien is a lot of fun. "Time to go sleepy-bye you worthless piece of garbage."