Still worth watching for any horror fan.

Rating: 6/10 (23 July 2010)

"You think that thing wanted to be an animal? No dogs make it a thousand miles through the cold! No, you don't understand! That thing wanted to be US!"
I'm definitely going to see the upcoming remake of The Thing (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 'nuff said) so I thought that it would be wise to see the 80's remake (the original movie came out in the 50's) before hand. And I'm glad I did. It may be a little dated by today's standards, but it's still a solid exercise in paranoia-fueled monster movies.
An isolated Antarctic research station on the cusp of polar winter becomes a battleground for a handful of people and a terrifying alien. One that has a unique ability that quickly causes the humans to not be able to trust one another. They have to remain on the lookout for danger from their fellow humans, as well as the creature.
The two aspects of The Thing that are most worthy of mention are the gory and impressive special effects, and the believable tension between the actors as they realize that there is no one they can trust but themselves. The creature design for the Thing truly is memorable, and if you have an aversion to copious amount of blood or tentacles, this will be a nightmare for you. The dynamics between the characters is what most of the story focuses on, and without that, this would just be a mindless movie about people being killed. But instead, it almost becomes a race between the viewer and the characters to figure out who is a threat and who (if anyone) might survive this whole thing. Pretty cool.
I think if you're a fan of movies like Alien, you'll like this. It doesn't quite have the timelessness of that movie, and it's not quite as frightening, but there's a similar vibe that the two share. If the upcoming remake is at least as good as this one, it'll be worth watching.