If anybody reading this knows our friend Tippy, tell him we finally watched The Thing. In the 80's, he offered to show us this on tape, but promised to fast forward straight to the gross stuff. We declined his kind offer, but he went right ahead. It didn't take much fast forwarding to get to the gross stuff. I think we finally got him to stop the tape, or maybe we fainted.
We have been afraid to look at it since. But since we've become such big John Carpenter fans (They Live, Ghosts of Mars, etc) we finally decided to go for it. Good choice.
The story is based on a hoary old John W. Campbell short, "Who Goes There?", and to a lesser degree, Howard Hawks' 1951 The Thing from Another World. A dog comes running into an isolated Antarctic research post, being chased by some Norwegians in a helicopter. The copter crashes and the dog turns out to be... OK, I'll skip the spoilers. But there are blood and guts, canine, human, and inhuman.
The movie bears a strong resemblance to Alien: the funky, lazy slacker crew, the tension, and the disgusting special effects. It also seems to have a stronger script, a bigger budget and tighter production than a lot of his films. In fact, it might be his masterpiece. (But I think I still like They Live better.)
Anyway, thanks Tippy. Sorry we were such wimps.
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- Beveridge D. Spenser
- I'm Beveridge D. Spenser, but you can call me Cool Bev. Or Fruity Bev. I'm 6'2", so Tall Bev also applies.
2 comments:
Congratulations on making it through John Carpenter's version of The Thing. I'm still a wimp and haven't worked up the nerve to watch the entire film ... I only made it through 10 minutes. Just looking at the production stills was enough to make me dread what was in the rest of the movie.
- Curt
I saw The Thing when it came out and haven't seen it since. I loved it, however, and really ought to hunt it down to watch again. I have also seen portions of The Thing from Another World and loved that, too, . . . I may track that one down as well. I guess I just have a thing about The Thing.
As far as the gross stuff goes, haven't you become desensitized to that yet? Maybe you need to watch some good Itchy and Scratchy cartoons. Flopping intestines are hilarious.
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