Why the Thing is the Greatest 80's Movie of All Time

When I was about 7 years old, I went with my Mother to a friends house. I was a kid so I typically watched TV, played with my He-Man toys or screwed around outside. This trip it was getting kind of late so I was laying on the couch. My Mom's friend had a fancy satellite dish, you remember those 12 foot in diameter kind right? I wasn't allowed to touch the controls so was at the mercy of whatever was on.

I watched some reruns of Mork & Mindy and then someone came in and changed the channel to HBO. I was thrilled. To a 7 year old, the hope of getting even a 1 second glimpse of a booby will enable them to sit through the most horrible films ever made. Unfortunately, this movie didn't deliver the boobies. Instead, it was one of the most unnerving and scary things I had ever seen in my entire life.

The Thing takes place in Antarctica where a 12 man research team is doing whatever it is they do in Antarctica. Probably taking samples of ice or writing the Declaration of Independence in the snow with pee. In the opening of the film, a nearby team of Norwegian researchers fly by desperately shouting and trying to shoot a dog. The Americans are confused by this, the helicopter blows up, and the dog finds a new home.

As any good horror movie insists, a few members of the American team head to the old Norwegian base to see what happened. The entire place has been burnt to the ground, corpses are everywhere. One corpse doesn't seem to be completely human and is taken back to be dissected and examined by the team's doc.

I don't want to ruin the story for those who haven't seen this movie but the nice little pooch that is brought into the research lab turns out to be one of the most terrifying movie creatures of all time. It's a type of shape-shifting being that apparently came from a UFO buried in the ice near the Norwegian base.

While the special effects are great for 1982, this movie really shines in how it sets a tone of unrelenting paranoia between every single member of the research team. Anyone could actually be "infected" so this leads to an amazing amount of tension in almost every scene.

This is a movie best watched about 11pm on a cold winter night to really get you in the mood.

I'm now over 30 years old and this movie still scares the crap out of me. Do yourself a favor and watch it unedited. If you try to watch it on a cable channel, people will seem to disappear and the storyline will be chopped so badly you won't know what the hell is going on.

What makes this the greatest 80's movie of all time? Kurt Russell. In the 80's Kurt Russell was the epitome of badassery and this movie is no exception.

Here are some links where you can get this amazing 80's movie:

VHS : http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Adrienne-Barbeau/dp/6300182878

DVD: http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Collectors-Wilford-Brimley/dp/0783227507

Blu-Ray Version (THE BEST)-http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4016589&SRCCODE=GOOGLEBASE&cm_mmc_o=TBBTkwCjCVyBpAgf%20mwzygtCjCVRqCjCVRq

HD-DVD version if for some reason you own one of those: http://www.dvdplanet.com/details.cfm/info/MCA027782/thing-1982-hd-dvd

Ebay, may have all formats: http://www.google.com/products?q=ebay+%22the+thing%22+1982&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=o6-6SbmtHpGksQPonPAt&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title