The Thing

Plot synopsis:
In the opening shot, an alien spaceship flies through space and enters Earth's atmosphere near Antarctica. Whether or not the ship crashes or lands on Earth is unknown.In Antarctica, the winter months of 1982, a helicopter flies hurriedly after a husky. The man riding next to the pilot shoots a rifle and drops grenades hoping to kill the dog. The runs toward an American research base, Outpost 31, where a 12-man research crew is getting ready for the upcoming winter. The helicopter, which they see is from a Norwegian research base, flies in and lands. The Americans watch puzzled as two men that emerge from the helicopter speak frantically in their native language. One of them pulls the pin on a grenade but clumsily throws it behind him. As he frantically tries to find it in the snow, it explodes, killing him and taking the helicopter with it. The pilot (named Matias in the prequel) is shooting his rifle hysterically and talking frantically; no one can understand what he is saying and the man shoots Bennings (Peter Maloney) in his left leg. The camp leader Garry (Donald Moffat) shoots and kills the gibbering man in defense.Puzzled about why the Norwegians were trying to kill the dog, MacReady (Kurt Russell) the team's helicopter pilot, their doctor, Copper (Richard Dysart) and Norris (Charles Hallahan), go to investigate the Norwegian base. Everyone is dead; one of them had barricaded himself in the radio room and is still sitting frozen in his chair, his wrists and throat slit in an apparent suicide. Mac and Copper explore further, finding a large and empty block of ice. Outside in the snow, along with one or two burned human bodies, Mac and Copper find the burnt and frozen corpse of a twisted creature, not man but not beast, either. They bring it back to their own base for an autopsy, but that muddies up the mystery.That night, the new stray husky is locked in with the sled dogs. The other dogs soon react with fear to the new addition, growling and snarling. The new dog suddenly transforms into a hideous creature with tentacles and crab's legs and starts attacking the other dogs. The scene is discovered by Clark (Richard Masur), who tends to the dogs and he watches, horrified. Mac hears the sounds of the thing's unworldly groan and he immediately responds by sounding the fire alarm, waking up the entire camp who converge on the dog kennel where they see the hideous dog-like creature seemingly consuming the other sled dogs. After shooting at it with their guns, the 'thing' is killed with a flamethrower. (Note: fire is apparently the only effective weapon against the alien creature which can hurt as well as kill it.) An autopsy on the thing's remains reveals its secret: the "thing" is an alien organism that imitates other life forms by attacking, and either digesting or dissolving them and reshaping it's image to appear in the animal or person it kills.The following day, MacReady flies with Palmer and Norris to the crash site of where the Norwegians found the UFO after watching a videotape of the discovery of something buried under the ice, and the Norwegians using thermal charges to melt the ice on the spaceship. They find the alien spaceship in the open crater and haul themselves down to look around. Mac asks Norris how long the ship has been entombed; Norris estimates that it's been there for at least 100,000 years. Up near the crash site, they find a block of the ice cap missing where the thing was discovered and chopped out of the ice by the Norwegians. Back at Outpost 31, Mac theorizes that the Norwegians awakened the creature and it immediately began to attack them.The team decides to place the creature's remains in a storage room. The assistant biologist Fuchs (Joel Polis) asks to speak privately with Mac; he tells Mac that he's been looking through the biologist Blair's (Wilford Brimley) notes and found that Blair believes the organism's cells are still alive and active. Blair has also theorized that the alien might have imitated a thousand other lifeforms across space.That evening, Blair studies cells from this Thing, and watches them attack and replicate other kinds of cells on his computer. Typing his report into his computer, the computer replies that the possibility that one or more team members may be infected by the alien organism is 75%, and that if the alien reached civilization, the Earth's population will be infected and taken over by the alien organism exactly 27,000 hours (around 37 months) after first contact.While Windows (Thomas G. Waites) and Bennings prepare the room to store the remains, it begins to move under the blanket it's been covered with. Windows returns to the room to find Bennings being attacked, wrapped in tentacles. Windows gets the other team members but Bennings has vanished, running out the back door. They find him in the snow, his transformation by the alien nearly complete except for his hands, which are hideously large and grotesque shapes. Mac and the team incinerates him alive and buries him in the snow.Realizing that something like this could take over the world if it got out, Blair kills the surviving sled dogs and destroys the helicopter and the communications equipment (injuring Windows in the process), trapping the crew without hope of rescue. The others, seeing him as a threat, lock him in the camp's tool shed and sedate him.The next morning, fear and paranoia circulates around the camp as nobody knows who may be the thing or who isn't. When blood plasma in the storage room is found to to be tampered with, which a scientific test that could have been used to find out who or who isn't human, Gary and two others (Dr. Copper and Clark) become suspects because of their access to the storage room. As a result they are quarantined by MacReady who takes over as the 'de facto' leader of the team to find out who may be the Thing. When a 'whiteout' storm (an Antarctic storm resembling a winter hurricane) hits the camp, they are forced to hunker down, all of them paranoid and distrustful of one another.The following evening, Fuchs, trying to do research on how the Thing can reproduce and multiply, is waylaid when one of the unseen persons infected, disables the power to the lab. In going after it, Fuchs is killed (off-camera) and his body is found outside in the snow a few hours later by Mac, Nauls and Windows. Either the Thing burned Fuchs to death, or Fuchs burned himself in a suicide to prevent him from being taken over. Mac tells Windows to return to the main building while he goes with Nauls to his shack to investigate: when he left two days before, he'd turned out the lights and they're back on.Some time later, Nauls returns to the camp, nearly collapsing because of the cold. He tells the others he'd found clothing with Mac's name on it in the oil drum near MacReady's shack. As they were struggling back to the main compound, Nauls cut Mac's safety line and made a break for it. Mac is locked outside and breaks the window in another storeroom to enter. He arms himself with a small bundle of dynamite and threatens to blow himself and the rest of them up if they don't back away. When Childs (Keith David) and the others rebel against MacReady (and to express their suspicion that he may be the Thing), Norris collapses when he appears to have a heart attack. When Dr. Copper tries to revive him using defibrillator paddles, Norris' chest suddenly opens up into a monstrous mouth and bites off Copper's arms. MacReady uses a flamethrower to destroy the Norris/Thing, leaving only it's head, which sprouts spider-like legs and tries to crawl away before it is destroyed as well.At this point, MacReady leads the others in a test to determine who is infected. He suggests that everyone give a blood sample, and then those blood samples be poked with a hot piece of wire. The theory is that each part of a Thing will try to survive independently, and therefore the blood would transform to defend itself. Clark makes another attempt on MacReady's life, he is shot and killed by him. Everyone is tied up (including the dead Clark and Copper) while the test is performed. Windows is the first to be tested, and turns out to be human; MacReady arms him with a flamethrower to torch anyone who might be a Thing. As MacReady continues the test (testing the dead bodies of Clark and Copper whom are not infected), he openly accuses Garry of being a duplicate, but instead finds that Palmer (David Clennon) is a Thing clone. As Palmer transforms, MacReady's flamethrower misfires and Windows hesitates to kill the Palmer-Thing, which proves to be a fatal mistake as Palmer-Thing's entire head splits open and turns into a giant mouth, which is used to crush Windows' head. MacReady manages to get his flamethrower working and sets the Palmer-Thing on fire which crashes through the wall to die in the snow. MacReady is then forced to torch Windows with the other flame thrower, since he is now infected and the Thing is coming back through him.MacReady and the three remaining survivors, Childs, Garry, and Nauls (T.K. Carter) are revealed to be not infected. While ordering Childs to stay behind to watch the camp, MacReady, Garry and Nauls go to check on Blair to give him the blood test, and discover the shed empty, save for a space craft Blair had been building under the shed. When the power in the whole compound turns off, the survivors discover that Blair is the last Thing creature and he must be stopped. Finally, realizing how pervasive the infection is and that there is little chance for survival, it is proposed that they blow up the base so the Thing can't get to the rest of the world. Childs runs off, and MacReady, Nauls and Garry set fire to the complex with dynamite to prevent the Thing from freezing itself again.In venturing down into the basement of the camp to set TNT charges, Garry is killed by the infected Blair. Nauls disappears and is never seen again. Then, MacReady comes face-to-face with the huge, tentacle Blair/Thing, which destroys his detonator. So instead, MacReady throws a lighted stick of dynamite at it. Both the Thing and the building explode, but MacReady survives. He stumbles to a ruined shack to find Childs there. Neither of them know whether the other is the Thing, and they both sit ready to kill the other at the first sign. (MacReady is definitely not the Thing, but there is a strong possibility that Childs might have been taken over when he wandered off earlier). They take swigs of a bottle of whiskey as the camera shows a wide shot of the camp in flames. Both men, exhausted and wary of each other, sit among the burning wreckage.... waiting for the fires to go out and the winter weather to consume them. On that dark note, and with a wiry laugh from MacReady, 'The Thing' comes to a close.

Tags: psychological, gothic, murder, cult, violence, horror, claustrophobic, suspenseful

Review:
"The Thing" is John Carpenter's masterpiece and one of the best classic horror films!.
I love Escape From New York and I love Escape From L.A. but I also love The Thing so much better this is definitely the best Carpenter film a truly masterpiece classic I love R.J. MacReady - Kurt Russell I love everything about this film that is.
This movie will leaving you wondering....is the guy/gal next to you really real?"Trust is a tough thing to come by these days." John Carpenter's The Thing is a seminal piece of horror that is not only a fine specimen of its era, but it also serves as a shining example of horror done absolutely right in any era.
Romero's Dawn of the Dead, and presenting the idea that true terror can be found at any time, in any place, and inside anyone, much like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, The Thing works on every level, and represents the peak of each and every aspect that may be utilized to make horror films effective.
Granted, this amalgamation of styles is not the only formula for winning horror.The basic plot about this movie is Horror-moister John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape from New York) teams Kurt Russell's outstanding performance with incredible visuals to build this chilling version of the classic The Thing.
The Thing is the best classic horror film from master and genius John Carpenter!
Some find them disgusting, some mere cult.An argument could be made against The Thing being an Alien rip-off; it has its origins in an old sci-fi story and it creates tension by popping a crowd of people (note: all-male) on an isolated outpost (an Antarctic research facility) terrorized by an alien life form.
Rob Bottin has done a great job witch today stands as a milestone is special effects makeup.The movie didn't get a big response when it first hit the big screen due to other alien films at the time and so it's not very well known.
Just to put things in perspective for you before I get into my thoughts on this film, I am only 20 years old and have grown up in the era of CGI, blue screen effects...and this movie was made around the same time i was born.With that said, WOW, I only recently saw John Carpenter's version of 'The Thing', and what a masterpiece it truly is.
In 'The Thing' John Carpenter has truly crafted a paranoia inducing, perhaps gut wrenching classic.The movie is an update of the classic 'The Thing From Outer Space', but only like it's predecessor, this film is in full color, and the characters of this film have much more to worry about than an alien veggieThe film centers around a group of Arctic Researchers you encounter an alien lifeform capable of taking the form of anything it comes into contact with, and out of for that matter.
A box office flop when released, now more then ever when movies are paper thin with plot, and one dimensional in effects, this film can be appreciated as a true masterpiece of sci/fi and horror.
The dialogue is laced with potency and viability for a group of men trying to keep it together under such duress, while Ennio Morricone's score is a wonderful eerie pulse beat that further racks up the sense of doom and paranoia seaming throughout the film.The cast are superb, a solid assembly line of actors led by Carpenter favourite Kurt Russell, whilst the effects used around the characters get the right amount of impact needed.
This is a GREAT movie, and stands as living proof that there were indeed realistic effects before CGI.Set on an isolated base in Antarctica, this version seems almost to pick up where the original version (The Thing From Another World) left off.
John Carpenter's The Thing is hands down the best horror film ever made.
The main reason why this movie is a cult-film is perhaps the splatter-effects created mainly by genius Rob Bottin and that this is the movie that made Kurt Russell what he is today (along with Escape from N.Y.) In my opinion, this is not a great film because of the effects, it has to do with the story, the atmosphere, and of course, the acting.
They both have an isolated setting where no help will be forthcoming, they both feature an attack by an unknown alien entity and they both have unbelievably good special effects, the sheer brutality, goriness and impossibility of which are the stuff of nightmares.The Thing adds the fact that its alien is capable of assuming other shapes, and the movie evolves to a tense hide and seek game and as the pressure rises, the group of scientists and researchers starts to crack.
Another well-loved horror masterpiece from director John Carpenter is this unforgettable re-imagining of the 1951 sci-fi classic The Thing From Another World.
An impressive feat indeed.Another highlight is the great cast of the film, the best of which is hero Kurt Russell in one of his most challenging roles.All around, The Thing is a stunning combination of moody atmosphere and out-of-this-world horrors.
For someone following in the footsteps of Howard Hawks, the filmmaker here has a lot more trust and talent in executing the material than most given the chance to have another go with an old film.With the effects people working to full force- amid what would likely follow Backdraft as containing the most fire per scene (it could become overkill, but it all fits into the suspense after a while)- the actors pull along as a fine ensemble.
It remains one of Carpenter's best; a rare breed of horror film where the story is told clear and precisely by way of the position of the camera, dialog, and timing with the scenes.
The film opens ominously with a flying saucer hurtling towards the earth's atmosphere then we are met with terrific titles which literally 'burn on to the screen 'John Carpenter's 'The Thing' The movie Begins In Antarctica Winter 1982 The first(god damn week of winter) with Two Norwegians in a helicopter who are in hot pursuit of a a Husky, which flees the helicopter and makes it through the snow to a United States science station Outpost 31, The twelve all male occupants emerge to see what's happening.
as the helicopter lands the two men end up dead one accidentally with the help of a misplaced grenade and the other is shot dead.The Americans don't know it yet, but their camp has just been infiltrated by a shape-shifting alien, And as the tag-line so succinctly puts it "Man is the warmest place to hide." this just has to be John Carpenter's finest picture it has now received the recognition it finally deserves, i always watch this classic on a regular basis it's a film upon every viewing you can get different readings to an extent it is quotable there is a prequel in the works but only time will tell if it is going to be on par with this masterpiece be sure you watch this classic in widescreen..
The cinematography is also excellent, with a dark and scary mood.Overral, 'The Thing' is easily John Carpenter's best movie.
The excellent writing, along with the good acting and Carpenter's perfect directing make this one of the best and most scary horror movies ever made.
They have become much more liberal.That's the reason why this film works so well, it's because Mr. Carpenter took a movie and did the things that the original directors couldn't do like add gore and more abstract ideas because back then they couldn't.
The tag line says it all.This is indeed scary stuff.This movie is a timeless masterpiece,Kurt Russel's best movie and John Carpenter's best movie too.In my opinion this is scarier than Alien and that means a lot.The atmosphere is creepy-cold,windy Antarctica.This is the perfect setting for this kind of movies.I remember the 1st time I ever watched The Thing.I was with my cousin and we were on the edges of our sits.This is really gross stuff.The make up effects are superb.Even today 26 years later they still look good as ever.Creator Rob Bottin and his team really did an outstanding job.The effects really help make the alien look terrifying.The best part is that this thing can mimic anything organic it touches.That's the best thing about the movie you can't tell who is who.If you want to be scared a lot this is the perfect choice for you.This might be the scariest film of all time.If you're into sci-fi and horror I can't think of a better picture than this-great characters,perfect setting,non stop chills,thrills and horror..
The Thing (1982), is directed by John Carpenter and stars Kurt Russell, as the leader of a crew stuck in Antarctica in the first week of winter because an alien has made its way into their base, kills anything it touches, and can only be destroyed by fire.
It's based on the John W.Campbell short story "Who Goes There?" The film is awesome.The Thing is an extremely claustrophobic, tense and frightening story, with fantastic acting, perfect direction and brilliant animatronic/models, that made the cast feel sick to their stomachs when they first saw them, and I don't blame them, they are extremely realistic, detailed and scary.
In some of the more tense scenes, for example where they are testing blood to see who is a thing and who isn't, is my favourite scene in the entire film, John Carpenter knows just how long to keep a shot going and keep the audience waiting, this winds up the tension perfectly, to an extremely frightening climax to the scene which is shot perfectly.
In interviews of both the actors and John Carpenter, it has been said that the actors AND the director did not know who was the thing and who wasn't in all of the dialogue scenes, which means that when you are watching it you know just as much as the actors, which really helps with bringing an element of distrust to the film.Overall, The Thing is the perfect science-fiction/horror film, along with Alien.
The Thing is a 1982 sci-fi horror film directed by John Carpenter and stars Kurt Russell as Mack MacReady, a researcher based in Antarctica and our protagonist in the film.
If you love John Carpenter, Kurt Russell, the other cast members mentioned above, horror, action, sci-fi, thrilling, suspense, and alien movies then this is the perfect movie to watch!
Strongly recommended!Movie Nuttball's NOTE:I also recommend these John Carpenter films: Big Trouble in Little China, Halloween, The Fog, Starman, Christine, Village of the Damned, and They Live!If you like alien movies I also recommend the following films: The Thing from another World, The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The UFO Incident, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial, Time Walker, Mac and Me, Explorers, Invaders from Mars, Communion, Fire in the Sky, Independence Day, The Arrival, Mars Attacks!
John Carpenter's The Thing is in my opinion the Greatest horror film ever made.
A brilliant mixture of great direction,acting,special effects,score and screenplay making this a all time classic horror film.
This is Carpenter's greatest film and It's not only my all time favorite Horror film it's one of my favorite films of all time period.The Thing tells the story of 12 researchers in a u.s outpost in Antarctica with nothing really happening until the researchers discover that an alien that came to earth years before is stalking them and killing them and imitating them.
One of the reasons I love the film besides the direction and special effects is the paranoia aspect of the film and when the characters stop trusting each other and start wondering who's human and who's not and Carpenter creates a dark end of the world feeling where the end will come from either aliens or man's own disturbing self destruction.
Campbell Jr. from 1939 which did feature a shape-shifting creature, thus making the film more tense and more suspenseful.John Carpenter has never been known for his character build up; in fact the villains in his movies are usually mindless and lack emotion or personality as shown in this film and many others such as Michael Myers in his merciless masterpiece 'Halloween', the car Christine in 'Christine' or the zombie-like ghosts from 'The Fog'.
Although I am not a fan of grotesque special effects, especially as over blown as they are here, John Carpenter's version of 'The Thing' still succeeds as a haunting tale of paranoia and is a highly entertaining and action packed sci-fi film that is sure to entertain even if it's not as great as Don Siegel's classic.Upon the film's release back in 1982, the film did not do so well in the box office, maybe because it came out only two weeks after the phenomenon 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' or maybe it's simply due to its extensive use gore and violence which it earned it an "R" rating by the Motion Picture Association of America.
"The Thing" has to be one of my favourite movies of John Carpenter.It's filled with great acting,moody lighting and jaw-droppingly excellent special effects.Carpenter's direction is great and the tension builds well.There is also plenty of stomach-churning gore to satisfy fans of splatter cinema.Finally there is no love story here(no female characters),no silly humour-just good clean horror!So if you haven't checked this one yet go and see it now!A must-see!.
The Thing is a first movie in the Apocalypse Trilogy, which continued with Prince Of Darkness and ended with In the Mouth of Madness.The Thing is widely regarded as one of John Carpenter's greatest masterpieces, and I would personally consider it a contender for the title of the best horror film ever made.
Kurt Russell stars as R.J. MacReady, an alcoholic Vietnam Vet, thrust into the role of leader of a group of relatively cold and callous men all of whom are readily plunging into manic paranoia and somewhat madness once they realize that they are up against a creature that can take any form, be any one of them.John Carpenter, more than in any other of his films, manages to create a truly believable and incredible atmosphere.
Kurt Russell stars as R.J. MacReady, an alcoholic Vietnam Vet, thrust into the role of leader of a group of relatively cold and callous men all of whom are readily plunging into manic paranoia and somewhat madness once they realize that they are up against a creature that can take any form, be any one of them.John Carpenter, more than in any other of his films, manages to create a truly believable and incredible atmosphere.
I'm not going to give it away here, but to say that it will leave you wondering would be an understatement.Kurt Russell is superb as MacReady....truly conveying the emotions of a man thrust into a situation of unimaginable horror, forced to lead a group of men who cannot trust that the man next to them is not the creature that has driven them to the brink of paranoia and emotional meltdown.I don't care if this movie is 20 years old by now, the special effects in this movie are gut wrenching, mind blowing, and absolutely awesome.
I'm not going to give it away here, but to say that it will leave you wondering would be an understatement.Kurt Russell is superb as MacReady....truly conveying the emotions of a man thrust into a situation of unimaginable horror, forced to lead a group of men who cannot trust that the man next to them is not the creature that has driven them to the brink of paranoia and emotional meltdown.I don't care if this movie is 20 years old by now, the special effects in this movie are gut wrenching, mind blowing, and absolutely awesome.
Here, the story is just a vehicle for the real purpose of this film: pure horror.Almost 30 years later, and John Carpenter's The Thing is still the scariest movie I've ever seen.
After his 1978 movie "Halloween" where horror pictures proved that evil will never die, Carpenter takes evil to a whole new game.Set in the Antarctica region where like "Alien," nobody would hear anybody scream, a group of researchers doing God-knows-what happen to stumble upon a Norwegian rifleman shooting at a dog where after the gunman is shot down, questions are being asked by the group including the no nonsense pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) in which they see more what they bargain for.During the film after an attack scene involving an alien dog, the investigation group fears that something has hit them and will never get out.
Paranoia leads to fear, fear leads to questioning and those seeking questions will finally have their answers.John Carpenter's The Thing is a "don't turn off the lights" movie where even during it's time despite the fact that E.T. hogged all the credits, it proves to be a classic thriller from icky special effects to make you either scream or shield your mouth to scenes that you'll remember in your nightmares..
The Thing is a 1982 film directed by John Carpenter (who i am a fan of) it stars Kurt Russell.
Give John Carpenter enough time and money to do it- and he'll do it right!The Thing is based on a science fiction novel called "Who Goes There" and was inspired by Carpenter's repetitive viewing of an earlier film of the same title- but this version is a thousand times better, scarier, and also much more true to the original written story and it also captures such an awesome feeling of isolation and spookiness with the scenery and the camera angles and lighting.What can I say- it's a masterpiece.PLOT: A number of scientists and their support team are out in the arctic doing research- one day a crazy Norwegian shows up wanting to kill a friendly dog.
John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the best horror movies of all time.