An American research station in Antarctica is home to twelve men for the winter. Aroused from their monotonous routine they see a helicopter flying low overhead. The chopper is from the Norwegian research center an hour away. The pilot and passenger are chasing a Malamute and shooting at it. The chopper lands. The passenger accidently blows up the helicopter and himself. The pilot continues to go after the dog shooting and saying something in Norwegian. He is shot by Commander Garry (Donald Moffat).
Trying to find out what is going on pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) fly over to the Norwegian base to check things out. All they find is devastation, scorched buildings and what appears to be the body of a deformed human. They return with the body, research papers and videotapes. Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley) does an autopsy. It shows normal human internal organs.
In the meantime the dog has been wandering around camp. Clark (Richard Masur) finally puts it in the kennel with the other sled dogs. In the dark the Malamute morphs into a creature with tentacles that it uses to wrap around the other dogs. It begins to digest them. The noise of the dogs brings everyone running. The massive mess of alien and dog is torched and autopsied. Dr. Blair realizes that they are looking at an alien that can mimic other life forms by absorbing them.
Then they look at the tapes. The Norwegians were excavating a site when they found an alien space ship. They blew it up. Then they found a creature frozen in the ice some distance away from the ship. They dug it up, brought it back to their camp and thawed it out. Havoc ensued. Blair discovers that the creature, even though it was interrupted in its assimilation process and appears to be dead, is still living. Before anything can be done, it begins to absorb everyone at the base. Not knowing who is an alien imitation and who is a human, all sense of community order breaks down. The guys begin to distrust each other and the Thing continues to pick them off one by one.
“The Thing” was released in 1982 and was directed by John Carpenter. It is a science fiction/horror film based on the novella “Who Goes There” by John W. Campbell Jr. The film was trashed by everybody. I mean everybody. Even the music score was trashed. Ennio Morricone’s score was nominated for a Razzie Award. When it was released to home video it gained a cult following. Big time. After that came merchandizing, video games, comics, board games and in 2011 a prequel also called “The Thing”. Now it’s included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die".
To create the opening title effect an animation cell with "The Thing" written on it was placed behind a smoke-filled fish tank which was covered with a plastic garbage bag. The bag was ignited, creating the effect of the title burning onto the screen.
Nothing says disgusting slimy horror quite like Rob Bottin. You give Rob a bunch of chemicals, food products, rubber, and mechanical parts he can give you a severed head that grows legs, gets up and walks away. Totally my favorite part of the movie. During production Rob was so busy with his effects that he was suffering from exhaustion. Stan Winston and his crew assisted doing much of the dog kennel effects. The actual grossest part for me was not the crazy, bloody creatures but when the character Windows was using the exacto-knife to draw blood.
Some of the other effects: The Sound editor Colin C. Mouat was responsible for the barking dog sound effects. To get them he rounded up all the neighborhood dogs, put them in his house and snuck around the building tapping on windows and rattling doors. The sound effect of the Antarctic wind was actually recorded in the desert outside Palm Springs. The female voice on MacReady's computer chess game was Adrienne Barbeau. The autopsy scene sound effects on the splitface thing were accomplished with paper towels soaked in egg yolk. A powdery substance used as a thickening agent in many products, called Carbopol, mixed with water was used as the Thing slime. It’s the same stuff found in your Twinkie. The alien’s blood is yellow so as to make it less human. It took fifty people to operate the Blair-Thing. The “flesh-flower” that attacks Childs was intricate. Its petals are twelve dog tongues, complete with rows of canine teeth. Rob Bottin dubbed it the "pissed-off cabbage". thing from another world, the (1951)
Every year in Antarctica the British Antarctic research stations watch “The Thing” as part of their Midwinter festival. The celebration marks the Summer solstice and is held every June 21st. thing from another world, the (1951) The dog’s name was Jed.