The Thing (1982)

Based on both the short story by John W. Campbell, Jr. and the 1951 film produced by Howard Hawks, THE THING is John Carpenter's stunning masterpiece of horror. A group of weary scientists enduring the winter in an isolated camp deep in Antarctica chance upon an alien spacecraft buried in the ice. Near the strange craft is the body of an alien being, frozen solid. Thinking they have made the find of a lifetime, the scientists bring the alien body back to camp and thaw it out. The alien awakens, not in the best of moods, and proceeds to take over the identities of the scientists, one by one, body and all. Helicopt...
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er pilot MacCready (Kurt Russell) must lead the surviving men in discovering who among them is human and who is not and how they can destroy "the thing" before it takes them all and moves on to the heavily populated mainland and the rest of humanity. Rob Bottin supplies the awe-inspiring special effects of the creature in its many, ever-changing forms. The effects were groundbreaking at the time and hold up flawlessly over the passing years. But Carpenter does not rely solely on special effects, utilizing his spectacular cast, which includes Wilford Brimley and Richard Dysart, to create three dimensional characters enduring an unthinkable situation. The score from Ennio Morricone is understated, yet increases the tense mood tenfold. Shooting was difficult and done in below freezing conditions, but despite the discomfort the cast and crew produced a truly terrifying film that will stand the test of time. THE THING is surely one of Carpenter's definitive films and a true horror classic.
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John Carpenter's The Thing is both a remake of Howard Hawks' 1951 film of the same name and a re-adaptation of the John W. Campbell Jr. story "Who Goes There?" on which it was based. Carpenter's film is more faithful to Campbell's story than Hawks' version and also substantially more reliant on special effects, provided in abundance by a team of over 40 technicians, including veteran creature-effects artists Rob Bottin and Stan Winston. The film opens enigmatically with a Siberian Husky running through the Antarctic tundra, chased by two men in a helicopter firing at it from above. Even after the dog finds shelte...
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r at an American research outpost, the men in the helicopter (Norwegians from an outpost nearby) land and keep shooting. One of the Norwegians drops a grenade and blows himself and the helicopter to pieces; the other is shot dead in the snow by Garry (Donald Moffat), the American outpost captain. American helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell, fresh from Carpenter's Escape From New York) and camp doctor Copper (Richard Dysart) fly off to find the Norwegian base and discover some pretty strange goings-on. The base is in ruins, and the only occupants are a man frozen to a chair (having cut his own throat) and the burned remains of what could be one man or several men. In a side room, Copper and MacReady find a coffin-like block of ice from which something has been recently cut. That night at the American base, the Husky changes into the Thing, and the Americans learn first-hand that the creature has the ability to mutate into anything it kills. For the rest of the film the men fight a losing (and very gory) battle against it, never knowing if one of their own dwindling number is the Thing in disguise. Though resurrected as a cult favorite, The Thing failed at the box office during its initial run, possibly because of its release just two weeks after Steven Spielberg's warmly received E.T.The Extra-Terrestrial. Along with Ridley Scott's futuristic Alien, The Thing helped stimulate a new wave of sci-fi horror films in which action and special effects wizardry were often seen as ends in themselves.
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Een Amerikaans onderzoek op Antarctica wordt verstoord doordat er door een langsvliegende Noor op een husky wordt geschoten. De hond wordt bij de andere in de kooi neergelegd, maar 's nachts muteert de hond en vermoordt alle andere honden. Het onderzoeks-team komt er achter dat er een buitenaards wezen is dat lichamen kan overnemen, maar wie heeft hij overgenomen?

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