John Carpenter's The Thing by the DVD Man

John Carpenter remade The Thing From Another World into John Carpenter's The Thing. After rewatching it after several years, I think it's one of those 80's movies that was great in the 80's, but just doesn't hold up now.

I didn't remember how gross and gory it is and if you know me, a movie has to be really gross and gory for me to notice. Now of course, I still get grossed out by real things. I still vividly remember watching a show about forensic science and when the guy said: "Let's fire up the skull saw!", I turned it off.

But The Thing is just nasty. Rob Bottin, the special effects & master monster maker, does his thing and I think was trying to outdo Alien. Maybe if I hadn't seen it before, it would have been a better experience. It just wasn't fun to watch, unlike the fun I had watching It Came from Beneath the Sea, which I've also seen plenty of time, but it seemed like there was more fun in noticing new things.

I will say that Richard Dyson's scream when he's trying to revive a guy already taken over by the creature and both his hands get chomped off by giant teeth in the guy's stomach was still fun.. YAAAAAAAAAA! Wilford Brimley is also quite good and I always like Kurt Russell.

I will always wonder, when a company is setting up an Antarctic expedition, why they only ordered 2 giant flamethrowers instead of 3? You just never know when it's 30 below zero, when you will need a good flamethrower. Zero Franks and of course no chickens or tumbleweeds, but a tape drive and I liked the funky 80's computer graphics with lots of pixels. I think I will add flamethrowers to my list of things to look for in a movie.

Go back and watch the original The Thing with James Arness as the giant carrot alien and just enjoy the final dialog over the radio: "Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"