Day 16: The Thing

Here's a story.

Awhile ago, me and my friend Bill attempted to watch this movie. It was on VHS and we put it in. We got to about the ten minute mark when we decided to shut it off. Now for the life of me I can't recall why we did that. It might have something to do with the fact the first 10 minutes show a guy in a helicopter shooting at a dog, a cute Husky one at that. But we shut it off and since then we never really looked back.

Now I regret it cause this movie is pure awesome! And this is my entry in the "sci-fi/horror" category. I was gonna go the "Alien" route but went with this instead, since it happens on Earth, and it's about paranoia, both making it that much more scarier.

I'm sure any horror movie fan knows the plot. The entire setting is some research place base in Antarticia at the start of winter. There's about 8 guys or so and they're lead by Mac, played by Kurt Russel. They find out an alien crashed to Earth about a billion years ago and was frozen since then. The dudes in the helicopter unthawed it and now it took the form of the dog. The alien is a shapeshifter of sorts, but instead of a copy it just takes over the body. So a shapeshifting pod person kinda sorta. Since it took the form of human, everyone thinks the alien or even aliens since it can split, is in them and Mac comes up with a test, which proves to work, in a real kick ass scene.

Mac has everybody tied up and he's about to do the test (it's a bit complicated to explain, just see the movie) and the Thing shows himself next to the three dudes tied up, and they're all panicking and shit. It's great.

Another great scene happened just before that one and thankfully, I found it on Youtube:


If you haven't already, don't you wanna see it based on that? Just awesomeness.

So eventually The Thing goes through people, Mac blows the entire base up, and he and Keith David are the only ones left. Either they freeze to death or they survive. We don't know cause the movie ends with them two just chillin' after blowing everything up.

And did you fuckin' know WILFORD FUCKIN' BRIMLEY was in this??? WITHOUT A MUSTACHE?? WTF??? And for some reason he's credited as "A. Wilford Brimley". Why yes, he is A Wilford Brimley. There were some other people I recognized but I couldn't place them.
I'm seeing if maybe there was one bad thing but...nope. It's a bit slow in parts but I think it helps build the tension, so I'm not gonna rag on that.

I just realized that this is in fact a remake from a 1950's movie and I'm praising a remake...wow. BUT! This is a GOOD remake! I think IF a movie were to be remade, the directors should watch this movie and see how it should be done. Dammit!

-Jason