The
Thing is set in the winter of 1982 at a research station in Antarctica.
A research team of twelve men find an alien ship (previously discovered
by a group of Norwegian scientists) that has fallen from the sky. It has
remained buried in the snow for over 100, 000 years. An alien being is
unfrozen and returns to life. It is able to change form and take the identity
of a consumed organism by means of altering its own cell structure. It
inflicts a horrible rain of terror on the twelve men of United States Outpost
#31. The research scientists must destroy the horrific creature before
it infects the entire station, which could lead to the infestation of the
entire planet. But in order to destroy the creature they must be able to
work together, this requires trust of one another. How will they be able
to trust each other when the possibility exists that one of them could
be the alien itself?
Universal Studios has released a collectors edition of
The Thing on DVD. This special release includes:
The following review was taken from Roger Ebert's Video Companion.
The Thing is a great barf-bag movie, all right, but is it any good? I found it disappointing, for two reasons: the superficial characterizations and the implausible behavior of the scientists on that icy outpost. Characters have never been Carpenter's strong point; he says he likes his movies to create emotions in his audiences, and I guess he'd rather see us jump six inches than get involved in the personalities of his characters. This time, though, despite some roughed-out typecasting and a few reliable stereotypes (the drunk, the psycho, the hero), he has populated his ice station with people whose primary purpose in life is to get jumped on from behind. The few scenes that develop characterizations are overwhelmed by the scenes in which the men are just setups for an attack by the Thing.
That leads us to the second problem, plausibility. We know that the Thing likes to wait until a character is alone, and then pounce, digest, and imitate him—by the time you see Doc again, is he still Doc, or is he the Thing? Well, the obvious defense against this problem is a watertight buddy system, but, time and time again, Carpenter allows his characters to wander off alone and come back with silly grins on their faces, until we've lost count of who may have been infected, and who hasn't. That takes the fun away.
The Thing is basically, then, just a geek show, a gross-out movie in which teen-agers can dare one another to watch the screen. There's nothing wrong with that; I like being scared and I was scared by many scenes in The Thing. But it seems clear that Carpenter made his choice early on to concentrate on the special effects and the technology and to allow the story and people to become secondary. Because this material has been done before, and better, especially in the original The Thing and in Alien, there's no need to see this version unless you are interested in what the Thing might look like while starting from anonymous greasy organs extruding giant crab legs and transmuting itself into a dog. Amazingly, I'll bet that thousands, if not millions, of moviegoers are interested in seeing just that.
The Thing is considered to be a classic sci-fi horror to some people. Personally I didn't like the movie very much at all. The story had some potential but it turned out to be very unrealistic, even for a horror/science fiction movie. The special effects are outdated and unrealistic. The worst thing of all is the ending, it is left open for the audience to make their own conclusions. The filmmakers left some loose ends, and without tying them together there is no point to the film. I don't like horror films very much, and The Thing is no exception. I give it a 5 out of 10.
