Tag Archives: John Carpenter’s “The Thing”

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You know you’re a sci-fi/horror fan if the term “Winter Storm Blair” immediately makes you think of this person.

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I Russelled up this meme so you could give it a Kurt response.

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I try to resist the urge to post memes on what is supposed to be a blog about writing, but this is just too cool.

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Throwback Thursday: “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)!

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This is it, folks.  This is the greatest movie of all time.  It’s better than “Blade Runner” (1982), better than John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982), better than “Aliens” (1986).  And those movies were all … perfect.  (Man the 1980’s really were a golden age for pop culture, weren’t they?)

I was eight years old when I saw this in the theater, and I thereafter was a bit of an Indiana Jones cultist.  It wasn’t just the action figures and board games and comic book and posters and role-playing games.  I actually resolved to become an archeologist (or a paleontologist), and I thought the best way that I could prepare for that as a third grader was to gain experience “in the field.”

So I would lead my friends on “digs” or “expeditions” in the forests around my neighborhood.  We would often arbitrarily pick a spot in the middle of nowhere and then just dig there, with a shovels we borrowed from my family’s garage.  We were hoping to find … anything of interest, I guess :buried treasure, dinosaur bones, Indian arrowheads, whatever.  (We never did.  About the only thing we “discovered” was that tree roots are a real bitch when you’re trying to dig a hole.)  I even kept maps and journals of our “adventures.”  These are the kinds of things that boys do before they discover girls.

I tried to look the part, too.  I had a brown cowboy hat that I hoped could pass for a fedora, an (empty) binocular case and a prop bullwhip snagged from a Levi’s jeans display at the local mall.  My older brother called me “Idaho Bones” because I essentially was a cheap, skinny knockoff of the character I wanted to emulate.  I hated it at the time, but as an adult, I kinda can’t dispute his assessment.

Oh, well.  We all had fun.  Every other boy in the neighborhood who spotted that bullwhip wanted to try it, so there’s that.

To this day, “Raiders” is still my favorite movie ever.

By the way, I am linking below to the Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers Youtube channel.

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Oh! Just one more Thing tonight!!

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You’re glad I reminded you, aren’t you?

I told Pete Harrison the other night that I watched the 2011 prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece, “The Thing.”

He simply responded, “Why?”

To me and undoubtedly many others, the 80’s classic will always be the paradigmatic horror – science fiction movie.  Because I admire a well made house as much as anyone, but AIN’T NO CARPENTER LIKE JOHN CARPENTER.  (Nobody repeat that, I want to copyright it and sell bumper stickers at horror conventions.)

Yes, the recent prequel inexplicably has the exact same title as the 1982 movie, and I have no frikkin’ idea why.  That just seems … deliberately stupid.  Nor is that the 2011 film’s only flaw … it’s universally maligned.

Does the 2011 outing really deserve all its bad press?  I say no.  Among other things, it delivered some fine goopity-gloppity monster goodness, delivered by an archetypal flying saucer, no less.  That’s something that I find refreshing in a horror movie marketplace that just seems inundated with demons and ghosts.  (I loved “Insidious,” but enough already.)

C’mon, Hollywood.  There are plenty of horror fans out there who grew up loving giant ants, Marine-baiting “Aliens,” werewolves, swarms of spiders troubling William Shatner, and the adversaries of Godzilla.  It’s why I gave a positive review to this year’s “Jurassic World,” despite a script of the same quality as that of “Gilligan’s Island.”  I want to see velociraptors chase a speeding truck.  I will ALWAYS want to see velociraptors chase a speeding truck.

And … I liked the 2011 movie’s protagonist!  Trying to mimic MacReady’s cunning anti-hero would have redundant!  This story featured a smart, young lady scientist who turned out to be tough under pressure.  That kinda worked for me.

I actually have seen 1951’s “The Thing From Another World,” but that was 30 years ago on VHS, with my “Movie Uncle,” John Muth.  I have NOT read “Who Goes There?,” John W. Campbell, Jr.’s 1938 novella upon which all of these films were based.  But I’m planning to.  (Last time I checked, it was floating around online somewhere.)

I’m just waiting for the first big blizzard to hit next winter.  Because ATMOSPHERE.