Geek Movies From The Summer of 1982 - The Thing

Here is a movie that I watched 30 years ago and did not like.  I often harass ShadoKP about it all the time.   I tease him all the time about it mainly because he is a big John Carpenter fan and I’m not.  Plus I love the original The Thing which starred James Arness and was actually called The Thing From Another World and was released in 1951. 

So for my voyage through the eight geek movies of the summer of 1982 I hemmed and hawed about watching it again.  It was a long time since I watched it quite possible 30 years since the last time.  Well I did and you know what?  I might have been wrong about this movie and a certain someone will be teasing me now.

 

To be quite honest I wasn’t a big fan of The Thing when I first saw it.  Nope, not one bit.  I thought it was, well what’s the word, lousy.   But since I have revisited this movie for the first time in 30 years or so for these articles on geek movies that were released in the summer of 1982 I might have to change my.  In fact I believe the new word to describe this film is Excellent. 

Even though my opinion of Poltergeist didn’t change and my thoughts on E.T wavered a little.  Watching The Thing again with an adult mind did change.  Why is that?  Who knows maybe I’m more mature or actually saw the film for what it really was. 

Well the story is pretty easy.  In fact if you can’t follow this story then you need to go watch something else more your speed.  The story is simply this.  Alien crashes on Earth.  Has the ability to change its shape and wants to take over the world.  Pretty easy and the fact Kurt Russell is making it his duty to prevent this alien from killing everyone and getting out of Antarctica to a populated city on Earth.

 

In fact Kurt Russell as MacReady is pretty bad ass and probably the only guy who has a grasp of the situation.  This makes him a pretty good anti-hero who is willing to kill to stay alive.  I just liked how Kurt Russell portrayed him and just enjoyed the character as a whole.

Unlike Poltergeist I did find The Thing to be scary.  In fact I found it pretty intense and the whole paranoia feel to it was great.   In fact that whole paranoia feel is what sold me on the movie the second time around.  It was pretty cool watching and trying to figure out which person was the alien.  Plus the best scene is where MacReady is heating up a wire and putting it in the blood to see who the alien is.  That scene was really creepy and intense.  I loved it.

 

The one detractor from this movie is that at times it was hard to figure out who was who.  Especially when the action got going and things were moving at a quick pace.  I mean they all had beards and were wearing coats with hoods and hats and with the snow it was hard to see who was who.  Kind of a small complaint but a complaint all the same but a minor one though.

To admit that one is wrong is probably a hard thing for anyone to admit.  The fact that I was wrong about The Thing is actually pretty funny considering all the times I have put it down. (I still love the original better) Even though I’m still not a big John Carpenter fan I admit I was wrong about The Thing and turned out I did like it after watching it again.