I knew I had to do something important this year, and a film doesn’t get much closer to me than this gem. You CANNOT call yourself a horror fan if you have not seen this. It’s impossible. Don’t fucking argue with me, I will win. I know one person out there is waiting to watch this with me someday, and I am holding you to it, their identity shall remain secret to everybody. Please, if you want to watch this, contact me, and I will make time to enjoy this. Also, you can have a hell of a drinking game to this delightful film.
First and foremost, not a female in the cast. How fucking amazing is that? SO no bullshit love story. Secondly, this is one of the better movies as far as music goes. It’s pretty much perfect. John Carpenter was so ahead of his time that over 30 years later, the special effects still hold up surprisingly well, so fuck off Michael Bay.
The cast is perfect. Kurt Russell is your lead guy as MacReady. Then you have the incomparable Keith David as Childs, the constantly pissed off black guy. Then there’s everybody’s favorite person with diabetes, Mr. Wilford Brimley as Dr. Blair. And there’s more as we go. This is a movie about men in Antarctica doing scientific and military research and whatnot.
We start off with a chopper that is chasing down a dog and shooting at it. The dog is being chased down by the Norwegians\. Now they are gonna try tossing grenades at the dog. The Americans take notice. The Norwegian accidentally explodes his copter. The dog is with the Americans and this guy just starts opening fine and hits Bennings in the leg. Gary puts a bullet through the Nord’s dome. Doc Copper heals up Bennings’ leg wound. Windows is trying to contact another US base, but he isn’t getting any responses. Nauls is our other black gent, and he likes riding on roller skates, and he’s a lot more carefree than Childs. There’s also Palmer, a sarcastic chickenshit dude. Clark is the guy who takes care of the dogs. Norris is somebody else in some authority and he’s a ginger. And finally, there’s Fuchs, just look at his name.
MacReady or Mac as people call him is in charge and usually is wearing something awesome on his head. And the only song played during the movie is Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and of course Nauls is jamming out to it. The dog they saved gets a lot of focus early on. Doc Copper, I will just call him Doc, is taking Mac to the Nord’s base, but it is all burnt u, looks like no survivors. What could have possibly happened? They find a body, but everything has been ravaged. It’s a weird mess and even a hole of some sorts. They found some….thing that is all burnt to hell. Blair is to do an autopsy, finding a normal set of internal organs.
Wow, a top-loading VCR, that’s old school. If you don’t know what a VCR is and you’re female, send me a pic of your boobs as you are probably still young and got them firm titties. I wish I was like this in real life. Clark brings the Nord’s dog into the kennel and it just lays down, perfectly still, sitting straight. Uh oh, it’s morphing. This scene is heartbreaking. It’s growing spider-like legs and spitting stuff at the dogs. One dog made such a good effort to tear a hole in the fence. Poor dog! Clark opens the door and 2 dogs escape. I really miss my dog. It’s not yet time to get another one, but hopefully, someday I’ll have another one. Mac unleashed the alarm. Mac sent Bennings to have Childs get the flame thrower. Yes, THE flame thrower. The dog in the kennel is this deformed monstrosity or blood and tentacles and has killed at least 2 dogs. Mac shoots one dog who is getting strangled to death. This thing grew limbs. Childs burns the shit out of this thing. Completely ridiculous looking thing. Now Blair is to autopsy this melted mass of dog.
So we find out that this thing tries to replicate whatever it is around. Blair is suspicious of Clark a bit. You see, this movie thrives on suspicion more than any film I have ever seen. Doc and Mac go for another trip to the other base, I think they have Nauls with them. Nope, they are going to this excavation sight they saw in a video they got from the base.
Lots of questions and theories being tossed out there. I love the computer graphics back them for doing research. The computer deduces that there is a 75% chance somebody else has been infected. Blair is awfully suspicious and now is packing a gun. Fuchs interrupts Windows, Bennings, and Mac from cleaning out a storage room where they are keeping the body. So Mac is out. Windows suggests just burning the corpse entirely, but Bennings says that those remains will earn somebody a Nobel Prize. Windows needs a key, leaving Bennings alone. Fuchs found some papers from Blair’s office. Blair has found there is still activity in the burned remains, so they aren’t fully dead. Blair is acting weird. Windows returns, and Bennings has been attacked by the thing. Bennings has now been infected, and he has mutated hands and has this awful scream. Bennings has now been set on fire.
Blair goes crazy, and this where I stop typing. You get the feeling things are hopeless, this horror, but do you realize just how hopeless?
This is one of the most re-watchable films in my household, well mainly due to me. Everything is foreboding and before you know it, it’s too late. Will they be able to stop it before everybody morphs? The ending is probably the best one in horror history. And it’s really not close. I want to emphasize again, just how amazing the music is in this. It’s not overly scary by any means, it’s just incredibly done horror. The funny thing is, look at what happened when they did The Thing in 2011. It sucked. Why? They tried to Hollywood it up too much, and they added females. Well, there’s your problem. It’s a perfectly fine film, good even, but not close to greatness. I give this the highest attainable score, a 9.2.
Final Rating: 9.2
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