WOW.Believe it or not i had never seen The Thing until tonight.What an awesome movie.Bleak,gooey,paranoid...fantastic.Something that is truly shocking apart from not having seen it till now is the original critical savaging it recieved on it's original release.Everyone from the New York Times to Roger Egbert mauling the movie.Obviously these critics have revised their kneejerk opinions now but lordy lord...cast iron proof of the inherent idiocy,snobby,irrelevant agendas of critics.
I have even read a quote by John Carpenter saying how the failure of the movie hit him hard,even the director of the 50's Thing was dissing him along with supposed "sci fi" fans.Shocking.This is a perfect piece of genre movie making,also as with the best horror or sci fi movies you can apply metaphor to The Thing whether this be about disease or lack of trust between humans.
One can only assume that in 1982 there was only room for one alien,this being E.T.Sometimes films no matter how good just don't hit the jackpot.It could something as moronic as a title..."what's this thing The Thing?"
Maybe a film sent in the artic with a bunch of beardy men living in close quarters doesn't have that summertime box office appeal.Or as an audience we are totally redundant,ignorant.
Get this The Thing opened at the same time as Blade Runner.....gore blimey talk about double dribble!These two movies ON RELEASE we're treated awfully.Bloomin Spielberg hey!
The special effects in The Thing are truly special,i did wrench a couple of times.Amazing stuff.The work that went into this movie shows,definetly a labour of love.The Thing is awesome and easily settles its slimey bottom in my top five movies of all time.That John Carpenter for even a NANO SECOND thought this was any type of failure is a travesty.As the film has since flourished in the home market and gained considerable status Carpenter hopefully feels what he should always have felt HE WAS RIGHT.Yeah Carpenter made a few stinkies but....HALLOWEEN,ASSAULT ON...,THE FOG,ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK,BIG TROUBLE...GENIUS.Sod Coppola give me Carpenter any day.Guy is a god.
All in all i think you can gather i rather liked The Thing.I am going to say this for the very first time as i can
THEY DON'T MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO.