The Thing (From Another World) 1951

Director: Christian Nyby

Starring:
Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Douglas Spencer, Robert Cornwaite, Dewey Martin and James Arness as The Thing.

A military crew flies onto the artic ice to check out what at first appears to be an airplane crash. When they arrive there they find the craft frozen beneath the surface. They realize it's no plane when they discover that it's circular in shape with no wings. Thermite bombs are used to try and melt the ice but whatever it is goes up in flames. Not far away a large body is spotted, it is carved out incased in a block of ice. It is loaded into the plane and they take off just ahead of a massive blizzard which strands them at the base with no way in or out. The blizzard also blocks out all radio transmission.

The creature, still in the contained in the ice block, is placed in a store room and the windows are broken out to prevent it from thawing out. One of the guys is left in the room to guard the thing and is given an electric blanket to keep warm. So what does this meathead do? He puts the blanket on the ice block so he can't see the creature and falls asleep. Naturally, the thing thaws out and splits.

The Thing heads outdoors where it runs into a team of sled dogs. There then transpires a mutual ripping apart of flesh and various body parts with the monster coming out on top, but he leaves a hand behind. After examining the hand the scientists determine the monster is a vegetable based life form complete with seed pods to grow little vegetable dudes from. They also realize the beast lives on blood.

The head scientist, who's a real nimrod, thinks he should be able to communicate with this "Inteligent Carrot." I was kind of hoping that he would end up being the monster's din din but such was not to be. At least the creature gives him a good shit-kicking. Anyway, he starts secretly growing the seed pods in a planter and feeds them with the base's stockpile of human blood. When the military dudes discover what he's up to they destroy the little bloomers.

The creature knocks off a few people here and there before they finally devise a plan to terminate the it. All they have to do is try and entice the creepy thing into the trap.

One of the very best from the fifties. It's very claustrophobic since the whole thing takes place in a series of small rooms and coridors. The monster is able to survive out in the Artic winter but the humans obviuosly cannot. They only way they can survive is to defeat the creature but nothing they try seems to work.

If you haven't seen this one, you should. The Thing was redone in 1982 but it's really a totally different movie. The monster was played by James Arness of TV's Gunsmoke fame.