LoginThe Thing is not only a brilliant remake(which I was not expecting after seeing abominations such as Psycho and The Wicker Man) but it is also a brilliant film that seamlessly blends horror and sci-fi amongst other things.
The atmosphere is especially what makes the movie so good. To this day, very few other movies have shocked, haunted or unnerved me as much as The Thing. The scenery, sets and costumes are eye-popping and the effects are brilliantly designed and suitably grotesque without distracting too much.
There is also Ennio Morricone's most haunting score, a cracking script and a deliberately slow-paced but compelling story that is quite ahead of its time. Not to mention wonderful direction and credible and well-written characters. The acting is equally great, in my mind Kurt Russell has never been better, likewise with Keith David and Wilford Brimley has brilliant delivery of the lines.
All in all, a brilliant film and one essentials and its genre(s). 10/10 Bethany Cox
The Thing (1982) Reviews
A serious contender for the best remake ever
Posted : 2 months, 4 weeks ago on 27 January 2024 09:47
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A serious contender for the best remake ever
Posted : 2 years, 1 month ago on 2 March 2022 02:01
The Thing is not only a brilliant remake(which I was not expecting after seeing abominations such as Psycho and The Wicker Man) but it is also a brilliant film that seamlessly blends horror and sci-fi amongst other things.
The atmosphere is especially what makes the movie so good. To this day, very few other movies have shocked, haunted or unnerved me as much as The Thing. The scenery, sets and costumes are eye-popping and the effects are brilliantly designed and suitably grotesque without distracting too much.
There is also Ennio Morricone's most haunting score, a cracking script and a deliberately slow-paced but compelling story that is quite ahead of its time. Not to mention wonderful direction and credible and well-written characters. The acting is equally great, in my mind Kurt Russell has never been better, likewise with Keith David and Wilford Brimley has brilliant delivery of the lines.
All in all, a brilliant film and one essentials and its genre(s). 10/10 Bethany Cox
The atmosphere is especially what makes the movie so good. To this day, very few other movies have shocked, haunted or unnerved me as much as The Thing. The scenery, sets and costumes are eye-popping and the effects are brilliantly designed and suitably grotesque without distracting too much.
There is also Ennio Morricone's most haunting score, a cracking script and a deliberately slow-paced but compelling story that is quite ahead of its time. Not to mention wonderful direction and credible and well-written characters. The acting is equally great, in my mind Kurt Russell has never been better, likewise with Keith David and Wilford Brimley has brilliant delivery of the lines.
All in all, a brilliant film and one essentials and its genre(s). 10/10 Bethany Cox
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The Thing (1982) review
Posted : 5 years, 10 months ago on 29 June 2018 03:48
Tres décadas después del estreno de La Cosa original, John Carpenter decidiría readaptar los eventos creando una especie de reimaginario. Manteniendo los mismos personajes en situaciones distintas le distinguirían de lo mostrado en el pasado e incentivaría a ver sus diferencias, cosa que la mayoría de la gente no entiende, los cambios son lo que pueden mejorar una versión de otra. Esto no le sentó bien en sus inicios pues fue recibida mal en taquilla y en crítica, al punto que pensaron considerarla un fracaso y de las peores mega producciones de todos los tiempos. Ahora mírennos casi cuarenta años más tarde, La Cosa de Carpenter recuperó su capital invertido y se transformó en un clásico de culto y una de las consideradas mejores películas de terror de todos los tiempos. Su fracaso se debió precisamente a su acercamiento crudo del tema frente a producciones positivas de los ochentas y noventas, la misma historia que Robocop o Starship Troopers.
La distinción nace de no ir sobre los investigadores de la historia original sino de otro grupo de la Antártida. Eso evita que sepas sobre la naturaleza del alíen desde el inicio. Sí es verdad, ya te meten el ovni volando en el espacio, pero aquello está ahí para darte contexto, no te explica exactamente qué es lo que hará, como efecto bonus mete cierta intriga el cómo se entremezclará con las nuevas situaciones.
El acercamiento que usa se basa mayormente en el misterio de que en la naturaleza del ente. Para ello los nuevos exploradores no saben a qué se enfrentan y la cosa se aprovecha de ello para infiltrarse e infectar a ciertos miembros. Es un método de anticipación ejemplar y la tensión se va construyendo mientras más averiguan de lo que pasó en verdad, hasta que la mierda golpea el ventilador y la cosa revela lo que en verdad es.
Una evidente influencia fuera del material original es el propio Lovecraft, digan lo que digan sobre su racismo, el sujeto era un genio con plantear destinos terribles para los que buscan verdades aterradoras. La exploración temática es mejor llevada con el miedo a lo desconocido y la paranoia siendo los puntos centrales. En la primera película los personajes trabajan en grupo para detener al enemigo, por acá todos se pelean y nadie confía en nadie, están conscientes que lo que la cosa es capaz de hacer y el peligro que podría desenmarañar si llega a la civilización. Varios se vuelven locos y sucumben a la paranoia y los personajes que cumplen el estereotipo de Chad también tienen su momento de bajeza fuera de ser ideales de masculinidad. Se logra transmitir bien la desconfianza, de igual modo al no tener certeza de quien sobrevivirá fuera quizás de los más capaces a lo mucho.
Los personajes orquestan cada uno un plan para descubrir la naturaleza de la cosa por lo que ninguno termina sobrando. La caracterización no es particularmente divertida o coqueta; ellos son hombres de mediana y tercera edad con pocos o nulos tratos cómicos, son cínicos llenos de miedo por sus vidas y completamente horrorizados por las perturbadoras cosas que ven. Tampoco diré que son Twelve Angry Men, la caracterización de ellos varía entre lo unidimensional y lo bidimensional y su único desarrollo se basa en que tan desconfiados, predispuestos o permisivos llegan a ser. Ese es el problema de tener doce personajes en tan poco tiempo. Ninguno tiene un pasado o anécdotas remarcables, ellos lo que hacen es estar estancados en su situación.
El ritmo será otro inconveniente, la trama es más compleja por el número de personajes y misterios enredados unos con otros, algunos les parecerá que la película mantiene el número de eventos de forma consistente en sus primeros minutos, es cuando ya saben que es capaz de hacer la cosa que se acelera esa cantidad de momentos y acciones por cabeza. Algunos lo encontrarán apresurado, y ciertos errores de transiciones darán la sensación de que faltan cachos de metraje que construyan mejor cada situación.
El plato fuerte que mantiene por completo la tensión fue su producción y efectos especiales, de nuevo, han pasado cuarenta años y las secuencias de body horror son más mórbidas y espantosas que el noventa y nueve por ciento de las películas de monstruos. La banda sonora de Ennio Morricone, la ambientación perfectamente construida, la atmósfera espeluznante que aprovecha que se desarrolla en el polo norte, las actuaciones profesionales y actores populares, cada uno de ellos crean un excelso producto audiovisual. Nada de eso vuelve mejor la trama, más ayudan a hacerla más destacable como entretenimiento.
Eso es lo que le ayuda, nunca se va con filosofías raras sin sentido de gente unidimensionalmente loca o en shock barato, no usa CGI cada rato, no tiene muchos jumpscares, no hay elementos de slasher, es una clásica representación de cómo ha de generarse el miedo. Es un espectáculo con temas interesantes que logra meterte intriga y tensión o sentirte de la mierda.
Próxima parada, la versión de 2011.
Apartado visual: 10/10
Dirección general 2/2 (espeluznante)
Actuación 2/2 (profesional)
Escenografía 2/2 (creepy)
Cinemáticas 2/2 (memorables)
Efectos especiales 2/2 (de los mejores en película de terror alguna)
Apartado acústico: 9/10
Actuación de voz 3/3 (natural)
Banda sonora 3/4 (no lo mejor de Morricone, pero hay sus temas interesantes)
Mezcla de sonido 3/3 (natural)
Trama: 8/10
Base 2/2 (intrigante)
Ritmo 1/2 (errático)
Complejidad 2/2 (para una película de terror)
plausibilidad 2/2 (creíble)
Conclusión 1/2 (abierta)
Personajes: 6/10
Presencia: 2/2 (fuerte)
Personalidad 2/2 (marcada)
Profundización 0/2 (no hay)
Desarrollo 1/2 (fuera de la paranoia, no hay)
Catarsis 1/2 (satisfactoria, pero abierta)
Importancia: 10/10
Valor histórico 3/3 (Among Us existe por esto)
revisita 3/3 cualquier sábado por la noche lo puedes matar con esto)
Memorabilidad 4/4 (quien no recordará esas espantosas secuencias de transformación)
Disfrute: 8/10
Me entretuve mucho
Calificación: 7.5/10
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The Thing
Posted : 10 years, 5 months ago on 6 November 2013 08:43
The scariest thing about The Thing isn’t the gore effects or the threat of infection. It’s the escalating sense of paranoia and the confined interiors that forces them to huddle together while stranded out in the wilderness far away from the rest of humanity. There’s no true way to know who is infected and who isn’t, or even how it manages to transfer from one organism to the next.
It helps tremendously that John Carpenter took a detached, remote tone from the material. There isn’t much heat on display, from the icy tundra of the landscape to the clinical approach to the gore and scares, The Thing is a scary movie done expertly. Many of the great special effects scenes in the movie are still highly impressive, but they still manage to disturb and give you a good jump-scare. But it’s the coldness of feeling that allows for the brutality and paranoia of the story to flourish and really ensnare the viewer.
Let’s go back and discuss those practical effects for a few minutes. They are highly disturbing and immensely memorable for just how surreal, deranged and violent they are. The crawling head that sprouts legs and moves around like a spider from hell is something I’ve never seen anything quite like that before, and it is as nightmarish as it sounds. Or the torso that opens up into a giant Venus flytrap and devours someone’s entire forearm? That is frightening stuff which will haunt your dreams for days afterwards. But it’s also incredibly well done; at once grossing you out and making you wonder just how they accomplished that illusion. It’s a bit of a joke and a shame that Rob Bottin and Stan Winston didn’t win the Oscar, or even get a nomination. The Thing had the unfortunate timing of coming a few weeks after E.T. and getting lost in that behemoth.
But it isn’t just purely aesthetics that make the film a success. Much of the credit must go the ensemble, led by a minimalist but terrific Kurt Russell. He manages to project an alpha-male posture that slowly begins to crumble and fade away leaving only the instinct to survive this. The other standouts are Keith David, always a welcome character actor whether it is his great voice work or his actual physical performances, and Wilford Brimley, managing to make a fat middle-aged man with thick glasses the most physically intimidating and chilling character in a room. The rest of the cast does solid work, but they’re not blessed with characters so layered or complex. Their anonymity works in the film’s favor as it makes their eventual demise seem all the more a forgone conclusion.
But when you get right down to it, The Thing is a film about mounting distrust and how men break in the face of an unseen and unknown danger. The greatest fear is the darkness within our souls, and how our paranoia and quest to survive will allow for us to perform and engage in some questionable actions. Film as petri dish to watch the dormant mental and emotional disease within ourselves flourish and destroy everything in its path? No wonder this is now considered a classic.
It helps tremendously that John Carpenter took a detached, remote tone from the material. There isn’t much heat on display, from the icy tundra of the landscape to the clinical approach to the gore and scares, The Thing is a scary movie done expertly. Many of the great special effects scenes in the movie are still highly impressive, but they still manage to disturb and give you a good jump-scare. But it’s the coldness of feeling that allows for the brutality and paranoia of the story to flourish and really ensnare the viewer.
Let’s go back and discuss those practical effects for a few minutes. They are highly disturbing and immensely memorable for just how surreal, deranged and violent they are. The crawling head that sprouts legs and moves around like a spider from hell is something I’ve never seen anything quite like that before, and it is as nightmarish as it sounds. Or the torso that opens up into a giant Venus flytrap and devours someone’s entire forearm? That is frightening stuff which will haunt your dreams for days afterwards. But it’s also incredibly well done; at once grossing you out and making you wonder just how they accomplished that illusion. It’s a bit of a joke and a shame that Rob Bottin and Stan Winston didn’t win the Oscar, or even get a nomination. The Thing had the unfortunate timing of coming a few weeks after E.T. and getting lost in that behemoth.
But it isn’t just purely aesthetics that make the film a success. Much of the credit must go the ensemble, led by a minimalist but terrific Kurt Russell. He manages to project an alpha-male posture that slowly begins to crumble and fade away leaving only the instinct to survive this. The other standouts are Keith David, always a welcome character actor whether it is his great voice work or his actual physical performances, and Wilford Brimley, managing to make a fat middle-aged man with thick glasses the most physically intimidating and chilling character in a room. The rest of the cast does solid work, but they’re not blessed with characters so layered or complex. Their anonymity works in the film’s favor as it makes their eventual demise seem all the more a forgone conclusion.
But when you get right down to it, The Thing is a film about mounting distrust and how men break in the face of an unseen and unknown danger. The greatest fear is the darkness within our souls, and how our paranoia and quest to survive will allow for us to perform and engage in some questionable actions. Film as petri dish to watch the dormant mental and emotional disease within ourselves flourish and destroy everything in its path? No wonder this is now considered a classic.
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A classic
Posted : 12 years ago on 23 April 2012 05:31
Since it was such a long time ago since I saw this flick, I thought it was finally time to re-watch it and, fortunately, I wasn't disappointed. Indeed, it starts out with a very typical ominous score which, for once, was not written by John Carpenter but by the great Ennio Morricone. From there, it becomes a chilling horror flick with some rather gruesome special effects. Even though it is actually never really scary, there is still loads of tension since you never know for sure, except for MacReady, who could be infected or not. I also appreciated the downbeat ending with no survivors, even the last 2 guys were left alone in the snow to die without a rescue team. I was rather amazed to read that this movie was a flop and was critically panned when it was released. Anyway, nowadays, it is rightfully considered by many as the best movie directed by John Carpenter and it is another great example that you can take an old movie, give it a fresh look and modify the story to fit our modern world with some tremendous results. To conclude, it is a genuine classic and definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.
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One of John Carpenter’s best films
Posted : 12 years, 5 months ago on 20 November 2011 12:56
"I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It'll fight if it has to, but it's vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won."
Tagged as a loose remake of Howard Hawks' 1951 flick The Thing from Another World (itself an adaptation of a John W. Campbell novella), John Carpenter's The Thing is a seminal horror picture that hooks you in from the outset and never lets go. Although the production is now considered a cult classic and one of Carpenter's finest efforts, The Thing was not exactly well-received upon release back in 1982 - critics lambasted it, while other summer films like E.T., Poltergeist and Conan the Barbarian were also vying for box office dollars, thus restricting The Thing's gross revenue. Luckily, it was given new life on home video, resulting in the kind of attention it deserved in the first place. Carpenter has crafted one hell of a white-knuckle thriller here; an engrossing examination of paranoia and the repugnant nature of mankind's dark survival instinct. On top of being an impressively gory creature feature, The Thing dabbles in psychological terror, and is heavily imbued with the brand of tension that Carpenter is renowned for.
Set at an American scientific outpost in the middle of the icy Antarctic desert, the film opens as a mysterious helicopter approaches carrying a Norwegian gunman who's apparently trying to shoot a runaway husky. Believing the Norwegian to be a threat, the Americans promptly kill the gunman before learning of his motivations. Fearing that more violence is imminent, the crew travel to the Norwegian camp but find it destroyed and isolated. Also lying nearby is a mangled humanoid. Not long afterwards, the husky reveals that it's not a dog at all, but an alien organism capable of perfectly mimicking any other life-form. With the alien creature on the loose, the possibility becomes very real that one of the American crew may have been taken over, but it's unclear just who it is...
Rather than simply remaking The Thing from Another World, John Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Lancaster produced a fresh adaptation of the original novella, using the era's updated special effects to create something closer to John W. Campbell's original vision. Narratively, The Thing can probably be described as a science fiction spin on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (a.k.a. Ten Little Indians), as characters are being mysteriously killed but the alien murderer is able to change its identity at the drop of a hat. It's touches like this which makes the film so riveting. One could call the film derivative due to its similarities to films like Alien and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (not to mention The Thing from Another World and the aforementioned Agatha Christie story), but all horror movies are unoriginal to some extent. What matters is the technique, and The Thing is a home run in this respect. The thought that any one of the central characters can be the alien at any time becomes a source of nail-biting tension, and several set-pieces (see the blood test) are enthralling in their unpredictability.
Even though this was director John Carpenter's first feature made inside the Hollywood system, The Thing was not weakened by studio interference. There's no sappy Hollywood romance or forced happy endings here - Carpenter was allowed to stick to his hallmarks (masterful widescreen photography, extreme violence, anti-heroes), but the studio backing gave him the added benefit of a generous budget. And my word, every penny of the $15 million budget was well-spent. The creature effects are still for the most part convincing and the gore is still repellent decades on, which is a testament to both the skill of FX technician Rob Bottin and the fact that prosthetics are superior to CGI. On top of this, the atmosphere is convincing, with a combination of sets and location filming allowing us to believe that these Americans are truly trapped in the middle of nowhere. Also effective is Ennio Morricone's minimalist score, which competently builds suspense. The music was clearly inspired by Carpenter's composing style, and those unaware of Morricone's involvement may be fooled into thinking that the director was responsible for the score (as he frequently is on his movies).
Kurt Russell (who had worked with John Carpenter a year prior on Escape From New York) is top-notch as helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady; one of the most involved crewmembers in finding out who the creature is. A badass, competent character actor, Russell owns the role, and his low-key performance is utterly convincing. The Thing is very much an ensemble picture though, with strong work all-round from the likes of Keith David, Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, David Clennon, Richard Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Joel Polis and Donald Moffat, just to name a few. There are no weak links in this cast. Only one female is in the movie, and it's strictly a vocal role: that of a computer. It's amazing to watch a horror movie which isn't marred by some bimbo of a love interest whose sole purpose is to look beautiful and attract more viewers.
Watching The Thing in the 21st Century, it's amazing how well the film has aged. It was produced long before polished, contemporary cinema ruled by digital effects, but it remains ageless, which just proves how accomplished Carpenter and his team truly are. Its agelessness is derived from the state-of-the-art (practical) special effects, and the fact that Carpenter relies more on tension and psychological terror than outright gore. This is a B-movie through and through, but B-movies do not come much better or more proficient than this.
8.8/10
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The Thing (1982) review
Posted : 12 years, 10 months ago on 8 June 2011 11:33
It doesn’t matter how many times you watch The Thing, it still has the ability to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and forces you to the edge of your seat.
The dark, brooding atmosphere starts at the opening credits when the title burns its way through the screen. The eerie thudding music accentuates this and the tone doesn’t let up for the full running time.
Kurt Russell is superb as MacReady, the world-weary pilot stuck in the middle of nowhere with a somewhat motley crew. He is the key figure the audience clings to throughout the film, the one voice of reason that can be trusted. The brilliance of the film is that by the end you cannot trust your own judgement – is MacReady human or alien copy? We never know the answer and therefore you leave the film with the sense of dread dripping off you.
The special effects are a key feature of the film, and are a testament against the pervasion of CGI in the modern horror and sci-fi. The creatures drip and ooze and scuttle, their hideous forms visceral and the more frightening as they are real and can be touched. The key scene where Norris is revealed as a Thing and his body falls apart in hideous fashion is as unsettling the thirtieth time as it is the first.
The Thing is easily John Carpenter’s best work, and is an excellent example of tension, suspense and character study as well as horror. You can only wonder at what the new prequel will bring to The Thing canon.
The dark, brooding atmosphere starts at the opening credits when the title burns its way through the screen. The eerie thudding music accentuates this and the tone doesn’t let up for the full running time.
Kurt Russell is superb as MacReady, the world-weary pilot stuck in the middle of nowhere with a somewhat motley crew. He is the key figure the audience clings to throughout the film, the one voice of reason that can be trusted. The brilliance of the film is that by the end you cannot trust your own judgement – is MacReady human or alien copy? We never know the answer and therefore you leave the film with the sense of dread dripping off you.
The special effects are a key feature of the film, and are a testament against the pervasion of CGI in the modern horror and sci-fi. The creatures drip and ooze and scuttle, their hideous forms visceral and the more frightening as they are real and can be touched. The key scene where Norris is revealed as a Thing and his body falls apart in hideous fashion is as unsettling the thirtieth time as it is the first.
The Thing is easily John Carpenter’s best work, and is an excellent example of tension, suspense and character study as well as horror. You can only wonder at what the new prequel will bring to The Thing canon.
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The Thing (1982) review
Posted : 13 years, 1 month ago on 25 March 2011 05:03
What’s amazing about the film is that the older I get the scarier the film is. I must have seen the film a half dozen times now. I first watched it when I was a kid, maybe 11 or 12, and I just kind of loved the gore effects. Was just riveted by them. Every subsequent rewatch has unsettled me a little more and watching it a few nights back the film struck me in a way that I wasn’t expecting. It literally had me on edge. I think the film works as a horror film both visually and conceptually, but I think the concept takes a little getting used to. The idea of being replaced and almost not knowing your replaced, having an enemy within, almost outweighs the body horror stuff in terms of sheer terror for me now. Maybe it’s a societal thing, maybe when you’re younger you care less about people around you and as such age you become more societally conscious. As such the idea of being a threat to people around you, and the people around you being a threat, doesn’t have as much power over an adolescent mind.
I will say this, the film looks incredible in Blu-Ray. Bottin’s FX work is just a marvel in Hi-Definition. It’s amazing to look at the transformations and see so many different things and concepts in there, stuff you might miss in the fuzz of Standard Def. It’s a testament to his work that it still holds up under HD scrutiny and actually works BETTER. There’s so many little touches which give the transformations a nightmarish quality, from the eye motif, to the wagging tongue as the head pulls away from the corpse, to the way windows twitches when he’s set alight. It’s ghoulish and it rewards your attention by being utterly chilling. This is easily my favourite Carpenter film, it’s just an amazing, tense, film and he creates an atmosphere that is almost Hitchcockian. The fact he can maintain full blown tension and paranoia for 45 minutes and never have it diffuse is just a marvel to me.
I will say this, the film looks incredible in Blu-Ray. Bottin’s FX work is just a marvel in Hi-Definition. It’s amazing to look at the transformations and see so many different things and concepts in there, stuff you might miss in the fuzz of Standard Def. It’s a testament to his work that it still holds up under HD scrutiny and actually works BETTER. There’s so many little touches which give the transformations a nightmarish quality, from the eye motif, to the wagging tongue as the head pulls away from the corpse, to the way windows twitches when he’s set alight. It’s ghoulish and it rewards your attention by being utterly chilling. This is easily my favourite Carpenter film, it’s just an amazing, tense, film and he creates an atmosphere that is almost Hitchcockian. The fact he can maintain full blown tension and paranoia for 45 minutes and never have it diffuse is just a marvel to me.
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