John Carpenter's "The Thing" was an incredible remake of "The Thing from Another World". For me, it was extra creepy because the first time I ever saw it, my DVD player was hooked up wrong and it would only display the movie in black & white. Let me tell you something, if you haven't seen this movie in black & white, you have no idea what you're missing. Believe it or not, the lack of color makes it fifty times scarier than they already are. Now even though I'm a huge fan of John Carpenter's older works, I have to give credit to the real genius behind this movie: Rob Bottin. His special effects work in The Thing go above and beyond the call of the horrifically grotesque.

An arctic research team of scientists have discovered an alien ship with a frozen alien on board. They bring back the alien to their laboratory for a closer inspection, not realizing that they're about to unleash hell upon themselves.

Before we get to the bloody stuff, I have to mention that Wilford Brimley has a big role in this movie. And as you know, after all of the rom hacks he's appeared in, we hold a special place in our hearts for the master of oats. Rock on Wilford, rock on.

Anyway, the thing about that Alien is that it wasn't really dead. And now that it has been thawed out, it's going after some prey. This alien has the unique ability to take on any form it comes in contact with, so pretty soon the scientists don't know who's a bloodthirsty alien and who's a regular scientist. It's a good thing that Snake Plisken... er... Jack Burton... er I mean Kurt Russel is there to help battle the thing. 

Now there's a lot of crazy scenes in this movie, including an insanely disturbing one in which the thing takes over a dog and then hatches a hideous mutation from within it. Still, the greatest scene in this film for me is when they're trying to resuscitate one of their friends who was taken over by the thing. He gives it a jolt with the defibrillator paddles and nothing happens. So he tries again, and his arms go through the other guy's chest this time! What happens next is something that imagine would be the kind of thing an EMT would have nightmares about...

The stomach forms a large set of teeth which actually bite off and eat the poor medic's arms! Beautiful. When I see scenes like this, it really shows a kind of art that has sadly been phased out over the years. Instead of incredibly detailed make-up effects that truly give credit to the "horror" genre, nowadays we're treated to crappy computer graphics. I say it's high time we dump the CGI and bring back the real stuff! Rob Bottin, I salute you for giving real horror fanatics something original to feast their eyes upon.

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