Overview
A wonderfully crisp script and quick-paced direction distinguishes this film about an alien creature discovered near an Arctic outpost. Members of a scientific research team cart the frozen pilot back to camp where it thaws out--much to their regret.
Awards:
Main Cast & Crew:
James Arness
Details
- Format: DVD
- Run Time: 87
- Color Format: B&W
- UPC: 053939668629
- Genre: Horror
- Rating: Not Rated
- Release Date: August 2003
Movie Reviews
Synopsis:
One of the great science fiction classics made in the 50s -- the period when the genre thrived.
A group of US scientists and servicemen, stationed on the North Pole, encounter an odd magnetic phenomenon that confuses all of their instruments. When the crew goes out to investigate, they find a block of ice containing an odd life form. But this is no archeological discovery -- because when the block melts, an invincible, grotesque creature, smarter and more powerful than humans, rises and goes on a rampage, almost destroying the polar station. Now the occupants of the station have to stop The Thing before it kills them... and embarks on its plan to destroy the planet.
Notes:
The Turner videocassette is part of the "RKO Collection."
Reviews:
"...[A] sci-fi classic..." - 02/28/1992 USA Today, p.3D
"...THE THING is a rare cautionary Cold War tale that's also plain fun..." - 08/01/2003 Entertainment Weekly, p.66
5 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's a Cold War masterpiece, paranoid tension building slowly as a team of egghead scientists and square-jawed air force officers discover a deep-frozen UFO." - 05/01/2007 Total Film, p.121
"Dimitri Tiomkin's rousing score cranks up the tension while Russell Harlan's atmospheric cinematography helps convince us that we really are in some icy wilderness." - 04/01/2007 Sight and Sound, p.87
