The Thing: Underground Movie Review

Happy Halloween everyone! Since it's the Ghosts and Ghouls season right now, we have a very special review for this scary occasion. We bring you an Underground review of a horror film classic. Most of us would probably never have heard of John Carpenter's The Thing. Hey, it was released during the early Eighties anyway. But it being unknown and old doesn't mean we should ignore it. So after almost three decades from its initial release, will The Thing still have the capacity to shock, to awe, to scare and surprise all of us? Well let's find out.

The film starts off in 1982 as an American Research Team in Antarctica is suddenly bothered by two Norwegian scientists who are in pursuit of a Alaskan Malamute (it looks like a sled dog). The two Norwegians are killed but the malamute lives and kept within the research station. The Americans decided to investigate the Norwegian Research Station as the two Norwegians acted in a strange way. They discover the Norwegian station is totally burned and destroyed. They discover as well a very weird entity on the snow. When they bring it back everyone is astounded in disbelief. The malamute is then caged with the other malamutes but soon, it acts in an odd way. It shifts and changes and sucks the life out of the other malamutes. Soon after that, the Thing escapes and the American team is now in dire straits as they are stuck for months with it somewhere out there.

As for the verdict, the film was astounding in most parts but we feel that it left some pretty big holes in the plot development. Let's come straight to the point; it's the fear factor were looking in this film and boy did this film bring it. Let's just say after watching films that had cheap tricks in scaring people ergo the music buildup plus sudden appearance of someone or something, it is very pleasing to see real terror come into your face. There is no surprises here. No! it's all about not knowing who the bad guy really is. It just was effective in letting you feel with the characters as they struggled to find out who was "copied" by the alien and who was not. The only major flaw we have about this film is the implementation of the Thing. The movie never really showed how it "killed" the other characters. It was as if some characters were just killed and subsequently copied by the Thing. But that is probably just a minor flaw that most would not notice. This is a recommended film this holiday season.





Rating: 4 reels





Why you should watch it:
- it's a very deep psychological thriller that truly shows a different type of scare that most film makers don't show
- very effective in bringing out and letting you feel the trust issues the characters feel

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- it's effects are very old and cheap
- it's not about the surprises but the mystery and suspense