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Title:	The Thing: Collector's Edition (1982)
Studio Line:	Universal - The ultimate in alien terror. Horror-meister John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape From New York) combines Kurt Russell's outstanding performance with incredible visuals to build this chilling version of the classic The Thing. The remake of the 1951 classic about an Antarctic outpost terrorized by an alien organism. In the winter of 1982, a twelve-man research team at a remote Antarctic research station discovers an alien buried in the snow for over 100,000 years. Soon unfrozen, the form-changing alien wreaks havoc, creates terror and becomes one of them.
Director:	John Carpenter
Cast:	Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, David Clennon, Keith David, Richard A. Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, Thomas G. Waites
DVD:	Widescreen 2.35:1; audio English DD 5.1, French Dolby Surround; subtitles Spanish; closed-captioned; single side - dual layer; 45 chapters; rated R; 109 min.; $34.98; street date 9/18/98.
Supplements:	Audio Commentary with director John Carpenter and Kurt Russel; "Making Of" Featurette; Production Photos; Theatrical Trailer; Interviews; Never-before-seen stop motion animation footage cut from the film; Work-in-progress visual effects footage; Behind-the-scenes location footage; Outtakes.
Purchase:	DVD

Picture/Sound/Extras: B+/B/A- The summer of 1982 was possibly the strongest ever witnessed, though we wouldn't recognize this until years later. That season's box office was strongly dominated by megahit E.T. the Extraterrestrial, though a few other films did pretty well for themselves; among others, both Poltergeist and Star Trek II were pretty sizable successes, and Conan the Barbarian did pretty well also. Perhaps even more notable were some of the year's disappointments. Blade Runner did nothing at the box office but has emerged as an incredibly influential and popular movie. To a lesser degree, John Carpenter's remake of The Thing from 1982 also falls into that category. It definitely proved less-than-popular at the box office that summer, but it's gone on to become a very respected and noteworthy film in its own right. To be frank, I've always found Carpenter to be an extremely overrated filmmaker. He's coasted by on the success of Halloween for years, and I think The Thing is probably his only other good film. Most of his other works vary from mediocre to truly awful, with most of them leaning toward the latter. Not The Thing, however, which I don't believe is a great film but it's still pretty compelling and unusual. It focusses on the inhabitants of a scientific base in the Antarctic. Their extremely dull lives are shaken one day when an apparently-crazed Norwegian helicopters flies into camp and shoots at a stray dog. Although his seemingly-irrational actions are attributed to cabin fever, we soon find out the real reasons for his shooting spree as something sinister starts to infiltrate the camp. The Thing works because Carpenter largely forgoes action theatrics in place of a sublime mood of paranoia. The movie's all about knowing who you can and cannot trust, and when you literally cannot trust anyone, how do you get through that situation? Carpenter resorts to some stock horror tactics at times to wake up the audience, but for the most part, he sticks to a subdued tone of suspicion and wariness that creates a terrific tension. It helps that the all-male cast works quite well. Kurt Russell provides a strong anti-hero as chopper pilot MacReady. Unlike most "action heroes", Russell's MacReady doesn't seem particularly smart, brave, clever, daring or quick, and instead of the usual witty rejoinders we here from these kinds of characters, the best line he can offer when challenged by the thing is "fuck you, too!" Shaggy hair and beard nicely obscure Russell's boyish good looks and make him seem appropriately weary and cynical. Russell's never been a great actor but he fits this role well. All of the other actors do fine work, though I don't think any stand out to any substantial degree. Russell dominates the movie, but the others seem more or less created equal; yes, we get to know Blair (Wilford Brimley) better than Fuchs (Joel Polis), but none of the characters gets a tremendous amount of development. Oddly, that somewhat superficial nature works in the best interest of the film. Since The Thing revolves so tightly around suspicion, it's ideal that we know little about the characters. Even MacReady becomes our main character essentially by default; Russell enjoys more screen time than the others, but we never learn the slightest hint about his life - or any of the others - prior to his arrival at this camp. Their worlds began and ended in the Antarctic, as far as we can see, and that absolute sense of isolation helps accentuate the mood. It also prevents the film from degenerating into any form of sentimental melodrama, as we have little reason to sympathize for these characters. Oh, we may develop affections based on superficial characteristics, but we don't hope for the survival of one character because of his wife and kids or discard another because he used to be a prison inmate; those factors may reside in their pasts, but we never learn anything along those lines, so the drama is reduced to the bare minimum. The Thing isn't quite good enough to truly be considered a classic, but it's a very strong film nonetheless; there's a reason why it's stuck around for all these years. Director Carpenter creates a marvelously tense and cynical piece that remains with you after you see it. The DVD: The Thing appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has not been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. While not flawless, the movie looks quite good on DVD. Sharpness probably is the strongest aspect of this transfer, as it seems very crisp and clear from start to finish; I detected almost no instances of softness and the image seemed very well-defined. Moiré effects are virtually nonexistent, and jagged edges only appear on rare occasions. The print itself displays some very light grain and speckling from time to time but seems almost totally free of other flaws such as nicks or hairs; I saw one or two instances of those kinds of problems, but that was it. Colors tend to appear slightly heavy; the film uses a blue tint that can be a little overwhelming at times and some hues look somewhat muddy. However, for the most part colors seemed acceptably accurate and true. Black levels were nicely deep and rich, but shadow detail could look overly dark some of the time; it didn't seem excessively opaque, but a lot of the film appears a bit too dim. Overall, however, I found The Thing to present a very strong image. Also solid but flawed is the movie's Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. I found the soundfield to be surprisingly wide and detailed for a relatively old film such as this; the mix appears quite active and the elements appear appropriately located within the environment. Panning between speakers seemed slightly awkward but worked acceptably well. Although I didn't notice any split surround usage, the rear channels added a nice element to the track and helped create a nicely encompassing soundstage. Quality seems generally strong but has a few problems, most notably some distortion. Dialogue sounds warm and pretty natural, but it suffers from some edginess at times. Nonetheless, it always appeared easily intelligible. Effects were a little thin but decently realistic, though they also displayed some distortion, most significantly during explosions. Ennio Morricone's score comes across very well; it seems smooth and clear and boasts some good bass at times. A layer of tape hiss periodically mars the presentation, but this occurs only a few times during the film. The distortion and the hiss led me to knock this track down to a "B", but it's still an impressive mix for an older movie. As is typical of Universal's excellent "Collector's Edition" DVDs, this release of The Thing packs in a nice array of supplemental features. First up is an audio commentary from 1995 that features Carpenter and Russell. (For reasons unknown, it took an extra three years for this release - originally intended solely as a laserdisc, since DVD didn't exist in 1995 - to hit the shelves.) This track rambles a bit and the participants (especially Carpenter) tend to spend too much time describing the action on screen, but I liked this track nonetheless. Both of the guys sound like they're having a great deal of fun as they talk about the movie, and enough interesting information appears to make the commentary worthwhile. Honestly, even Carpenter's frequent blow-by-blow of what we already see on screen bothered me much less than usual just because the pair are so engaging. Even better is "Terror Takes Shape", a good 82-minute documentary about the film. A wealth of participants appear through contemporary interviews; we hear from actors Russell, Richard Masur, Charles Hallahan, Joel Polis, effects artists Rob Bottin, Stan Winston, Peter Kuran, Albert Whitlock, Susan Turner, and producer David Foster, screenwriter Bill Lancaster, cinematographer Dean Cundey, editor Todd Ramsay, production designer John Lloyd, and Carpenter. The program covers a wealth of information about the film and provides a very nice overview of a wide variety of topics. I found the emphasis to be a little heavy on the technical side of the equation - I would have liked to hear more from the actors - but the balance seems fairly logical, especially for such an effects-heavy movie. Universal create some nice documentaries, and "Terror Takes Shape" is no exception. (As an aside, what the hell has happened to Carpenter? The guy's only 52 - and was just 47 or 48 when this interview was filmed - but he looks like he's about 90. Such are the deleterious effects of smoking, I guess. Forget the Surgeon General's warnings; put a shot of Carpenter on the side of each pack of smokes and big tobacco will be on its knees!) In addition to those two nice pieces, we also find a slew of different areas that combine text, photos and other materials to describe the creation of the film. -"Production Background Archive" covers how the movie came to attract various participants like Carpenter and it shows excerpts from the original story treatment; -"Cast Production Photographs" features some snaps of the actors (duh!) plus brief text that described the casting; -"Production Art and Storyboards" details the design of The Thing itself through text and a variety of drawings (concept art and storyboards). It also features a few photos, mainly of creature creator Rob "Y'know" Bottin; -"Location Design" discusses how the filmmakers convinced us the participants were in the Antarctic through text and photos; -"Production Archives" relates a variety of information about the shoot itself though pictures and words, and we also learn a lot more about the effects; -"Post Production" mainly includes photos of composer Ennio Morricone (a couple) and the movie's premiere in Hollywood (a lot), plus it tosses in a shot of the novelization cover and an early design for the title; -"Production Notes" provides a basic overview of the film's creation (including a fair amount of information we've already heard); Three other sections offer two different formats within their areas. Each has a stillframe gallery that works like all of those above, with a variety of text and photo elements, but every one of them includes a video component as well: -"The Saucer" provides a lot of information about the creation of the alien ship. The video portion shows all of the different "passes" the camera had to make to ultimately complete the composite image of the saucer in a few different scenes; -"Blairmonster" discusses an abandoned portion of the film that included additional footage of the "Thing" toward the end of the movie. The video part shows the discarded stop motion shots, integrated back into the final scenes; -"Outtakes" features other deleted scenes. The still section provides a few photos of segments that appear to have been lost and the text discusses them, while the video area displays about four minutes and 10 seconds of excised scenes that remained available. Some folks aren't fond of still-frame sections, and I admit that DVD makes it a little wearying to wade through them (CAV laserdisc does this much more smoothly), but I enjoy the wealth of material they offer. Video programs are more "user friendly", but text can provide more detail and depth, and I enjoy programs such as these. In total, all of these departments really help give you a strong understanding of the film's creation. I guess it's not quite an "Easter egg", but one other extra is pretty well hidden. If you go to the "Languages" menu for the "Terror Takes Shape" documentary, you can activate the film's score. It'll be played as an isolated track during the documentary itself. While it's odd that they didn't have the music run during the film, it's nonetheless a cool little addition. Finally, the DVD a "Cast and Filmmakers" section that includes decent biographies of Russell and Carpenter (what happened to everybody else?) plus we find the film's original theatrical trailer. All told, it's a fine collection of supplemental material. Although it was a financial bomb at the box office in the summer of 1982, The Thing has since gone on to become a minor classic of the science fiction genre. Its delicious melding of sci-fi creatures with Fifties-era paranoiac drama create a film that remains wonderfully tense and unusual. The DVD provides pretty good picture and sound with some terrific extras. All fans of quality science fiction/horror movies will be very happy to own a copy of The Thing. Menu: DVD Movie Guide | Archive | Top