Nov 133 min read

The Thing (1982)

Over forty years old and still going strong - the thing's a real survivor...

Reminder for reviews: I'm only really going to talk about what stood out to me, so anything I don't bring up is most likely just fine.

If an issue isn't bad enough to detract from the experience, then that's a good thing - just like something not standing out as being noteworthy doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing.

It's perfectly fine for a thing to serve its purpose and nothing more.

MOVIES

- The Thing (1982) plot summary: A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims. (IMDb)

- You know, if I'd realised that I hadn't previously written about John Carpenter's The Thing, it would've been perfect for Halloween.

- The 'problem' is that I enjoy this movie so much and have seen it so many times, that I just took it as a given that I must've said something about it before.

- So what makes it so good? For me, it still works after numerous re-watches because of how large the cast is, weirdly.

- It's easy to remember who the last people(?) left alive are, and maybe a couple of other standout final scenes for some of the others.

- But the cast is large enough it's easy to question if you're getting one character's fate mixed up with another, and you can get pleasantly surprised.

- That said, the cast is also small enough that you never lose track of who is who despite the chaos and paranoia caused by the titular alien creature.

- For first time watchers though, it'll almost certainly be the practical creature effects that will stand out for them, and rightly so.

- In my head, I adjust how I watch the film to take into account its age and that the practical effects really do look like movie props rather than 'real' things.

- I imagine that when this movie was originally released, the creature was both disgusting and scary, with it remaining the former even if technology moving on has reduced the scare factor somewhat.

- That said, I still love the designs of the various forms the creature takes, the level of creativity to come up with them in the first place and the ingenuity to make the models to fit what the scenes required.

- Even then, the disgusting, body horror genius of the creature designs are still more of a bonus than anything else for me.

- Going back to the size of the cast, the fact that the story starts out with so many people to feature means that there's always something happening.

- Couple that with a running time of under two hours and it just flies by, which also helps make it so easy to re-watch.

- Even when another gross encounter with the creature isn't happening, there's usually some conflict or other between the rest of the cast and those scenes are just as much fun to watch as any other part.

- I haven't seen the original movie or the 2011 film, but I really can't see how they could ever come close to being as good as what John Carpenter put together here.

- The Thing (1982) is a stone cold sci-fi horror classic that I'd recommend to anyone but the squeamish, as some of the gorier scenes might still be pretty off-putting to them. [10/10]

GAMES

- I'm up to chapter five of 1000xRESIST and things are getting very interesting, helped by some incredible imagery.

- I've also started Lake, which from just an hour's play feels like it's going to be one of the most cosy games ever.

- As for my latest Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough, I had originally intended to romance Lae'zel, so of course this happens to be the first time she isn't interested...

- I've also started another playthrough of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, but that's more for when I have free time and will probably take quite a long time to get through.