Blu-ray Review: THE THING Collector’s Edition

Nearly 35 years after its release, John Carpenter’s The Thing remains one of the greatest—if not the greatest—horror movies of all-time. A masterpiece of dread, tension, nihilism, and staggeringly imaginative practical effects, it is a high-water mark of the genre and the best movie ever made by a filmmaker with a lot of great movies to his credit. This is John Carpenter’s masterpiece.

By now, you know the story. For this loose remake of Christian Nyby’s (and Howard Hawks’) 1951 sci-fi classic, The Thing from Another World, Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Lancaster went back to John Campbell Jr.’s original story “Who Goes There?” to tell the tale of a research team in the Antarctic who encounter an alien life form with the ability to assimilate and imitate any being it encounters. Totally isolated by the freezing temperatures and snowy landscape, the men can no longer be sure who among them is still human… and who is The Thing.

Many of Carpenter’s films are concerned with questions of identity. But rather than consistently position the outsider in an alien environment, Carpenter takes those questions of identity inward—his “alien environment” is often man himself. Starman, Prince of Darkness, and They Live all deal with the idea of what’s hidden in plain sight. None of Carpenter’s films address that theme more, however, than The Thing; it’s his graduate thesis on the subject and arguably the best exploration of the idea in any movie of the last 50 years. It’s the not knowing who to trust or what to expect that makes the movie so scary—a fact that Carpenter milks for maximum effect, nowhere more famously than in the brilliant “blood testing” sequence, a masterful exercise in editing and timing. Like he had previously done in Halloween, Carpenter makes every corner and every shadow seem ominous—we are sure something is there to get us even when we can see that there isn’t. The Thing is 110 minutes of sustained dread.

If the movie had only been that, it would still be a horror masterpiece. But what makes The Thing such a special, one-of-a-kind film is that it is also a tour de force of gore and practical effects. As horror fans, we’ve come to expect that movies are either quiet, moody, and tense or balls-out splatter fests. Carpenter’s The Thing is one of the only horror movies that succeeds wildly at being both. Rob Bottin’s effects remain in a league of their own 30+ years later, not only for their fantastic execution (aided in no small measure by Dean Cundey’s ability to light them just right so as not to show too much and give away the magic trick), but also for their inventiveness. The creature effects in this movie show us things we’ve never seen in movies before or since.

Though not a success until finding an audience years later on home video, The Thing is the film that essentially defined the remainder of Carpenter’s career. Even the non-horror Starman exists in the shadow of The Thing, if only because the former seems to have been made in response to the latter. Having made a movie about a vicious parasitic alien that was met with a chilly reception (pun intended), Carpenter opted to tell a story about a much sweeter, gentler visitor from space who learns to love instead of transforming into a gooey, tentacled dog-head monster. But Carpenter’s refusal to compromise even on his first big studio movie became one of the defining characteristics of his career, as did his willingness to explore many of the same themes with the cynicism he first refined on Escape from New York before perfecting it in The Thing.

Scream Factory’s new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of The Thing is arguably one of the most highly anticipated home video releases of the year—the definitive edition of one of the most beloved titles in all of horror. Though previously released as both a special edition DVD and Blu-ray from Universal, Scream Factory’s package outshines prior releases in every way. The HD transfer on Universal’s original Blu-ray was always somewhat lacking, suffering from DNR that took away some of the grain and detail, smoothing out the gorgeously lit dark sequences in the process. Scream Factory has created a new 2K scan of the film supervised by cinematographer Dean Cundey, and the new transfer alone is reason enough to upgrade your old copy of the movie. The new 1080p transfer handles color better and never loses the image in the many lowly lit sequences; best of all, it is still forgiving of Rob Bottin’s rubber and latex effects—yet another testament to just how well the groundbreaking work holds up.

As if a gorgeous new transfer isn’t enough, Scream Factory packed their release with two discs’ worth of bonus material. Two new commentary tracks are included; the first with DP Dean Cundey and Blumhouse.com’s Rob Galluzzo, and the second with co-producer Stuart Cohen. More importantly, Scream Factory ported over the original DVD commentary with Carpenter and star Kurt Russell; every commentary with this pair is among the best the format has produced. The rest of the first disc contains primarily promotional material for the movie, including the original teaser, two separate trailers, a collection of TV and radio spots, and a 15-minute montage of behind-the-scenes and promotional stills.

The bulk of the special features are contained on the second disc, kicking off with a new interview with John Carpenter conducted by director Mick Garris, who was around for the filming of the movie during his PR days. Theirs is a great conversation about the movie’s legacy and finding success after all these years. There are also extended interviews and featurettes with the cast (“The Men of Outpost 31”), editor Todd Ramsay (“Assembling and Assimilation”), the visual effects artists (“Behind the Chameleon: The Sights of The Thing”), the sound editor and designer (“Sounds from the Cold”), and author Alan Dean Foster, who wrote the novelization of the film. There are two photo galleries, one covering the locations and the other presenting the designs of artist Mike Ploog. A bunch of vintage production featurettes are also on hand, including interviews, outtakes, and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as a nearly hour-long production archive.

Two of the best special features are reserved for the second disc. The first is a 92-minute alternate TV broadcast edit of The Thing, presented here in standard def. Finally, Scream Factory has done fans the honor of bringing back the 80-minute “Terror Takes Shape” documentary originally included on Universal’s first special edition DVD release, but missing from the previous Blu-ray. It features comments from most of the major participants, including Carpenter, Cundey, Kurt Russell and even Rob Bottin, who hasn’t been heard from much in recent years.

Given its status as an all-time classic, it’s hard to believe now that The Thing was both a commercial and critical disappointment when it hit theaters in 1982. Audiences still basking in the glow of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. weren’t prepared for an alien that had no interest in being our friend and sharing our Reese’s Pieces. But the years have been good to the film, which is what happens when a director is as ahead of his time as Carpenter has always been. The package that Scream Factory has put together is among the year’s best, and truly the special edition that this masterpiece deserves. Pick it up as soon as possible. I’ll just… wait here a little while. See what happens.

Movie Score: 5/5, Disc Score: 4.5/5