When John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing premiered in 1982 and was mostly rejected by both movie-going audiences and critics, an afterlife on home video was all but inevitable. Beginning with CED, Laserdisc, VHS, and DVD, the film, like several that John Carpenter made that weren’t fully appreciated upon their initial releases, built an avid following, with many in that following proclaiming it to be “the best film that John Carpenter ever made” and/or “the best monster movie ever made”. Who Goes There? In Search of The Thing an all-new feature length documentary produced by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures exploring the history of The Thing, from the original novella to John Carpenter’s terrifying science fiction classic. Featuring new interviews with the cast and crew, as well as authors, historians, and critics Critically panned at the time of its release, John Carpenter s The Thing has rightly gone on to become one of the most celebrated sci-fi horror efforts ever made now newly restored by Arrow Video in a stunning 4K transfer supervised by Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundey. A research team based out in the snowy wilds of Antartica find themselves beseiged by a terrifying, shape-shifting creature which has found its way into their base. When it becomes clear that the creature can take the form of any organism it so chooses, the tension within the team reaches breaking point any one of them could be... The Thing. It also deeply hurt John Carpenter, changing the trajectory of his career and, more or less, forcing him to do other types of films, but with less independence and less creative control from then on in. Today, it’s seen as a masterpiece, staying true the tagline framed atop its theatrical poster “The ultimate in alien terror.”

As it freezes in the ice today, I find the 2011 The Thing to just be okay. I didn’t love it in 2011and I don’t feel much differently about it twelve years later. It’s distracting enough to be entertaining but not good enough to be something I pull off the shelf very often. I appreciate its ambition, I liked some of its ideas, and I liked the main cast of Winstead, Thomsen, and Joel Edgerton. I especially enjoyed this film’s suggestion that someone taken by the creature may not fully be aware they’re no longer human. There are a lot of other great elements in play but something failed to glue together to form a genuinely fitting prequel. Until we see anything officially official from Blumhouse about their adaptation of Frozen Hell, the 2002 PS2 and Xbox video game (and the Dark Horse comics if you can find them) remains the best follow-up to John Carpenter’s classic. Who Goes There? In Search of The Thing an all-new feature length documentary produced by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures exploring the history of The Thing, from the original novella to John Carpenter's terrifying science fiction classic. Featuring new interviews with the cast and crew, as well as authors, historians, and critics Vintage Product Reel – Contains A Condensed Version Of The Film With Additional Footage Not In The Film (SD) Wisely, this version aims to stake out its own corner of the story taking place mere days before MacReady and Copper find the burnt-out Norwegian outpost. The opening may borrow a bit too heavily from 2004's Alien vs Predator for my liking, but it's a serviceable setup. In a nice touch, some of the characters and story beats are practically lifted right from John Campbell’s original story Who Goes There - or Frozen Hell if you're in for the full manuscript version. Even Ulrich Thomsen’s Dr. Halvorson plays like an ode to Robert Cornthwaite’s Dr. Carrignton from Howard Hawks’ The Thing From Another World. There are new twists to the creature’s biology and methods for detection in human form that don’t repeat what Carpenter and his crew did so effectively in 1982.

The Thing: Other Editions

Sounds From The Cold – Interviews With Supervising Sound Editor David Lewis Yewdall And Special Sound Effects Designer Alan Howarth John Carpenter’s The Thing infects its first 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release thanks to Universal Home Video in a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital set. Pressed on a BD-100 disc, the discs are housed in a standard sturdy two-disc case. The included SDR Blu-ray is the exact same disc from 2008 without any updates in audio. The 4K disc loads to Universal’s standard static-image main menu with an animated bonus features menu along the righthand side.

Arrow Video has restored the celebrated sci-fi horror movie “The Thing” in stunning 4K quality and carefully wrapped it in this tantalizing SteelBook® edition. The icy details get an interesting play from the metal canvas and fits perfectly with the dark blue tones in the artwork. We now come to the fourth incarnation of the film on Blu-ray (and I've actually reviewed the previous two). This time around, Scream Factory has re-released the film in a Limited Edition Steelbook, featuring not only their content, but a third disc that features the recent 4K scan of the film by Arrow Video. The Men Of Outpost 31 – Interviews With Keith David, Wilford Brimley, David Clennon, Thomas Waites, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur And Joel Polis The fate of The Thing theatrically is truly one of cinema’s greatest losses. It’s always been a personal favorite, but no matter how well made the film was, its bleakness as a story about isolation and paranoia, of which many metaphors can be drawn out of, just wasn’t going to be able to hold up against the monster hit that was E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial. Both are about alien beings, but both are completely different ends of the spectrum, and releasing The Thing two weeks after E.T.’s premiere all but guaranteed that it would fail.Over the years, star Kurt Russell and master of horror John Carpenter have teamed up on a multitude of films (Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York to name a few) but of all their collaborations, 1982 s horror/sci-fi amalgalm The Thing surely tops the list.