The Thing
Director: John Carpenter
Year Released: 1982
Rating: 2.0
Some strange entity is found in ice by Norwegian explorers, and now it's running loose in some vaguely defined Government facility in Antarctica where it replicates whatever it comes near (a fine, fine visual explanation for this is done by Wilford Brimley in a laugh-out-loud scene where Atari 2600 blips collide into one another, and the computer tabulates whacked-out statistics like how much of our civilization will be wiped out). Characterization is kicked aside for flamethrowers and some brilliant special effects work, not to mention Carpenter's skill at keeping the icky things cloaked in darkness (twenty years later and it still looks good) - he avoids the campy over-acting that plague some of his hokier pictures, but still neglects to make his movie 'about' anything besides explosions (the 'fear of being alone'/'fear of trust' angle was done with better precision by Romero in his zombie pictures).
