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| Kurt
Russell, A. Wilford Brimley, T.K Carter, David Clennon, Keith
David, Richard Dysart, Donal Moffat |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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[Norris' head grows legs and tries
to walk away.]
Palmer: You gotta be fucking kidding me.
Scientists in the Antarctic are confronted
by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of the people
that it kills.
 More
like Invasion of the Body Snatchers than like the original
The Thing (from Another World) - which clearly inspired Alien
-, Carpenter's nasty foray into bizarre creature effects in the
polar circle was dismissed as overly gory upon its initial release,
but has since gained a strong and deserved cult following. Seen
in perspective today, a few of the effects still seem like they're
going for a little too much gratuitous gore, but most of this isn't
any more extreme than what you would encounter in a run-of-the-mill
1990s action movie.
After Escape from New York, director John Carpenter and star
Kurt Russell once again prove to be a winning team with a much darker
film than the tongue-in-cheek adventures in their previous effort.
The isolated surroundings along with Carpenter's eerie score create
a forbidding atmosphere where paranoia is allowed to run rampant
among a group of scientists clearly not equipped for dealing with
extreme situations. |
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Region 1 and Region 2 releases are
identical.
The widescreen image is letterboxed
at 2.35:1. Although the transfer isn't anamorphic, it shows excellent
horizontal and vertical resolution, and the image is crisp and clear
with deep blacks and no sign of graininess or compression artifacts.
The soundtrack had been completely remastered in a new Dolby Digital
5.1 mix that allows Carpenter's creepy synthesizer score to reverberate
across a wide and deep soundstage. The sound design is excellent
and fully immersive.
Universal went all out on this
Collector's Edition, and I think I can safely say that I now know
more about this movie than I ever really wanted to... There is so
much material on this disc, it would take anyone several hours to
even browse through it all, let alone take everything in.
The most entertaining extra feature by far is the audio commentary
track from John Carpenter and Kurt Russell. The actor and director
clearly enjoy each other's company as much as they enjoy reminiscing
about the hardships the cast and crew had to endure while shooting
this movie at remote locations where it was always freezing cold.
They are both excellent talkers with a good sense of humor, and
frequently crack each other up.
Another solid extra is the 60-minute documentary John Carpenter's
The Thing: Terror Takes Shape. It features interviews with all
the principal actors and key crew members, and allows Rob Bottin
and his special effects work to come to the fore a little more.
It truly covers every aspect of the production, and is conveniently
arranged in chapters that allow for direct scene access.
Most of the other extras in the image galleries and 'documented
production archive' are either glimpsed or fully covered in the
documentary, so a sense of déjà-vu is sure to appear
while browsing through the many text screens and image galleries.
There is one elaborate effects scene that was cut from the finale
as the stop-motion effect was too much at odds with the other creature
effects, and it is included in full on this DVD.  The
menu screens are disappointingly flat and dull, and seem rather
under-designed for such an elaborate special edition DVD. They are
accompanied by cues from the score.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Thing .
Click here
to return to the front page.
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