I rented this movie around 1984.I was grown at the time and am glad they did not have stuff like this when I was a kid because at that time I had nightmares from The Cosmic Monsters and The Crawling Eye. I now own this on DVD and have watched it many times. My wife recently watched it with me having never before seen it. She absolutely will not watch it again and refuses to let me play it while she is in the oom. --------------POSSIBLE SPOILERS------------ This movie is a masterpiece for its genre. I especially appreciate several of it's "rarities". First, it's seriousness.No lame jokes and sarcasm that is so prevalent today. No super macho junk. Nobody fighting the monster with martial arts. Nobody telling their life's story. Nobody saying "fire in the hole", "he's mine", or any other too cool cliches of today. No woman "dressed to kill" hefting a shotgun or the latest bazooka. No distracting romance or flirting with the opposite sex. Example ,the movie "Speed". Sandra Bullock flirting with, laughing with, being coy with Keanu Reeves while driving a bus with a bomb underneath it. Give me a break!!! " The Thing" is a serious movie. It is believable. It is about 12 men facing a monstrous problem and nothing else. That is enough. Jokes , sarcasm, cliches, and any romance would have ruined it's hard edge. They would have made it infinitely less scary. It is a simple movie without distracting side storylines. This is really a one of a kind movie the likes which will probably never be seen again. I think ole John C. and Rob Bottin really were hell bent to top "Alien" and they did. To me they topped everything else too. Too bad JC did'nt wait a while for ET to go away to release it. Many people do not agree with me about the movie's merits and it does have it's faults but I hope I can one day see a more perfect horror movie than this. This is the movie that every SIFI and horror movie promised to be but this and only this delivered all the goods.And without a rubber suit, computers, and very little stop motion.(One scene with stop motion at the end got deleted before release--it is included on the dvd) Side note- I don't fully agree that it is all that bloody. Most of the red stuff comes from the alien when it "melts".Most of the gore is the alien creature when it changes shapes.Except for the "chest with teeth" scene there really are almost no scenes where humans are shown much bloodshed(Watch it again and you will see what I'm talking about). Even the guy who gets his head roped into the creatures "jawhead" only has creature red stuff on him and his head is melting when he gets lose. The people who have a problem with the dog's head splitting should realize that it is the alien dog, not a regular dog. Get real, people.This alien is SERIOUS and is an equal opportunity advocate. My favorite scene?? The begining, the end, and everything in between. As for the guy who said he did not see any actors he knew except Kirk Russel. How many TV shows and movies has he seen?? Buy the DVD and watch it every 2 years. It gets better with age.By the way, they needed the flame throwers to melt the snow, right?
Reviews
2 Reviews
man did this give a 9 year old nightmares
16 March 2004
As a very young lad in the late 50's with an older sister who had a car, I spent many a Saturday with her and her friends at the local movie theater watching the latest horror movies.She says this was my choice because I did'nt like Westerns. Well I can't remember that but I do vaguely remember a certain double feature that scared the hell out of me. When I got home I did not want to go to bed(our house was in the country with woods all around). I thought the real frogs,crickets, and other bugs I heard outside were giant insects coming to get me. Since that night some 45 years ago I have seen countless 50's SF and horror movies hoping to find out what those 2 movies were. Many were similar and some had similar names ie."Thing From Another World", "Monster That Challenged The World"(I also saw it when I was a little older but it did not scare me quite as much),"X The Unknown","The Beginning Of The End" etc. but none were exactly "right".I began to think these movies did not exist or had gotten lost so I just gave up ever finding them, especially since no tv station we get ever shows any old SF or horror movies anymore.Since I had no idea of their titles(if they did exist) or actors in them , I logged on to the imdb and starting reading reviews of some of the movies and BINGO!!!There they both were. I could not believe it.Thanks to the great descriptions by your reviewers I finally found them. Needless to say they have both been ordered. The scariest to me was "The Strange World of Planet X", probably called "Cosmic Monsters" or "Crawling Terror". I can't give a a decent review of either movie because it has been 40+ years. By the way the other goodie was "The Trellenberg Terror" aka "The Crawling Eye" or "The Creature From Another World" . Now my life will be even more complete (ha ha) when someone comes out with a DVD or VHS of "Caltiki ,The Immortal Monster".I did catch it on tv as an "adult" of about 14 years of age but have not seen it since.
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