A more faithful and suspense-filled version of the short story

Rating: 9/10 (8 April 2001)

I never liked the first version of "The Thing." It didn't follow the short story (which a great many science fiction fans believe is the best SF short story ever written). The monster's makeup was awful, as was typical for a 1950's horror film, and the characterizations were stereotypical. The John Carpenter version fixes all of these problems. With the exception of the ending, it is very close to the original story. The special effects are excellent, and the characterizations (or at least the fear they exhibit) seemed realistic to me. The only flaw was the ending, which IMHO made no sense whatever. Happily, one can still enjoy the movie even with the ending. I've watched it several times and still find it a good flick.