Rent The Thing on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Bill Lancaster (screenplay by), John W. Campbell Jr. (based on the story "Who Goes There" by)
Directed by: John Carpenter
Starring: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Verdict
It's a great, suspense inducing premise. One of the men at an isolated research station is a monster, but which one is it? Everything is against these guys; their location, environment, weather, and each other. If the monster doesn't get them, the paranoia will, and you can feel the despair. This balances mental and visual. The effects are gruesome, but being practical instead of CGI only adds to the unsettling feeling. How do you prove you're not a monster and how do you disprove the others you're trapped with might be one?
Watch It.
Review
A remake released in 2011 with the same name. It's very much the same movie, but it's too much action and not enough suspense. The ending was the best part, but it's not worth watching the whole thing for that. The X-files had their own episode that seems very much inspired by The Thing.
The original movie captures the paranoia so well. It's a deadly guessing game of which one of them is the monster. Worse still the crew at the research station don't even realize what's going on at first. This opens with a helicopter tracking a dog across Antarctica. The dog runs up to a research station and the man on the helicopter hops off and starts shooting into the crowd of men that have exited the station due to the helicopter to get the dog.
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| Kurt Russell plays Macready |
The isolation and setting are such a great idea. Being isolated up here would drive you stir crazy, but there's something not right with the situation. Macready (Kurt Russell) flies to the nearby Norwegian site for clues as to why the guy in the helicopter was after the dog. They find a station in shambles with the crew dead. They find a body that looks similar to a man but with a few very odd differences.
This is such an experience. We're ahead of the station in knowing what happened, but that still leaves a lot of questions. As they slowly learn what they're facing, that doesn't make it any easier to fight or defend yourself. Any one of them could be suspect, and we're learning why the Norwegian site was wrecked. This site is starting to look similar.
This movie is not for the squeamish. While this uses obvious practical effects, that's more effective and haunting that CGI as CGI often looks and feels fake. It doesn't have any weight, and with practical there's an uncanny valley effect that makes it more unsettling.
This hits you with these unsettling visuals of this unseemly monster, and when this slows down you imagine the paranoia and isolation these guys are facing. They're beset on all sides and that's what makes this so engrossing.
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