p e n g u i n d e v i l

What else needs to be said about The Thing? Easily the best John Carpenter movie and easily the best of Kurt Russel’s (rather tired) series of scraggy independent tough guy roles, The Thing is also one of the greatest horror movies of all time and easily ranking in the top three of Sci-Fi monster movies (along with, obviously, Alien and, not so obviously, Event Horizon)… And yes, it is also one of the few examples of remakes that are completely superior to their originals.

Taking place on a secluded base in the Antarctic, the small crew of 12 men are getting ready to settle in for a long winter when they get some rather unexpected visitors. A couple of Norwegians in a helicopter chasing (well, and shooting at) a dog. When the helicopter lands and the Norwegians run through the base still shooting in pursuit of the dog, well, something just had to be done. The Norwegians end up dead, the dog ends up in the kennel and a couple of the guys take their helicopter off through the bad weather to see what might be up at the Norwegian’s base.

Of course, upon investigation, the Norwegian base is gutted and only corpses are to be found, including a very unusual one… What they also find is that those fellows seem to have uncovered an ancient spaceship and dug something out of the ice next to it. As our guys return to the base and the crew start to realize what is going on, we settle into a very unsettling case of rampant paranoia wherein everyone thinks that everyone else is not to be trusted. Scary, creepy and suspenseful with the great isolating environment of Antarctica, The Thing is a monster movie with great ideas.

Featuring one of the most outlandish and tricky monsters out there and a great cast. While the special effects are certainly starting to get pretty dated after 30 years, they still hold your attention with their great, grotesque and outrageous gore.