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1982 was a hell of a year for movies, spear-headed by the blockbuster Steven Spielberg classic ET, but 1982 also might have been the greatest single year for cult classics of all time. Bladerunner, The Dark Crystal, Creepshow – the list goes on – but at the top of that list is the box-office-bomb-turned-genre-classic, John Carpenter’s The Thing!
In remote Antarctica, a group of American research scientists are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot (Kurt Russell) and the camp doctor (Richard Dysart) lead the camp crew in a desperate, gory battle against the vicious creature before it picks them all off, one by one.
Join Clay, Amanda, and special guest, author Tony McMillen as they get into the finer points of oscillating workplace power dynamics, cinema’s single greatest defibrillator scene, baffling nose rings on old men, John Carpenter sound-alike music in a film directed by John Carpenter, acing the blood test while failing the Bechdel Test, and questionable DOG parenting!
A critical and box office failure at the time, an outcome that almost caused John Carpenter to abandon filmmaking forever, The Thing has risen to the heights of acclaim, both critically and in the eyes of almost anyone who sees it. It’s a tense study of paranoia and distrust, wrapped up in the gooey, drippy tentacles of a space monster and the ice-cold snowy wasteland of Antarctica. Add to that Wilford Brimley and Kurt Russell’s award-winning quarantine hair/beard and you’ve got yourself a classic! So find your favorite dog, start suspecting your roommate and join us in out in the cold…if you DARE!