Special Program: They Wanted To See Something Different

The Thing

John Carpenter
USA 1981
109 min
V'12

A research team in the Antarctic discovers a deep-frozen extraterrestrial creature that is capable of transforming into an exact copy of any living creature. In the isolated research station, the body snatcher parasite starts to contaminate and decimate the scientists. John Carpenter’s 1982 THE THING marked a milestone in specialeffects cinema. The film was to visualize on the screen all the monstrous things that Ridley Scott had left in the dark a short while before in ALIEN, a film that was key to defining the style of genre cinema of the 80’s. At first sight it was barely noticeable that Carpenter’s film was a remake of the seminal 1951 science fiction classic by the same name, but the concept of threat by the Thing is clearly based on Cold War invasion anxiety. It is the enemy from outside, an evil intruder from an alien world that threatens to undermine and contaminate our society, until we are no longer in a position to trust even friends and family.

Credits
  • Kurt Russell - R.J. MacReady
  • Wilford Brimley - Dr. Blair
  • T.K. Carter - Nauls
  • David Clennon - Palmer
  • Keith David - Childs
  • Richard Dysart - Copper
  • Bill Lancaster nach der Kurzgeschichte «Who Goes There?» (1938) von John W. Campbell
  • Dean Cundey
  • David Katz
  • Todd Ramsay
  • Ennio Morricone
  • John L. Lloyd
  • Roy Arbogast
  • Rob Bottin
David Foster Productions, Turman-Foster Company, Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
35 mm
col
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