by Chuck Hoodak

Created on: August 01, 2008

The Thing is a 1982 film that is based on the short story, "Who Goes There?", by John W. Campbell, Jr. Most stories that make the translation from written word to the big screen suffer from lack of interpretation, but John Carpenter's version of Campbell's story is one of the best film adaptations ever.

The Thing is the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica that encounter an alien life form which can assume the shape of, and imitate, any living thing.

After a husky runs into their camp, chased by a helicopter manned by armed Norwegian scientists, a group of Americans are forced to defend themselves by killing the Norwegians.

Alarmed by what has taken place, it is decided that the Norwegian camp must be investigated. What Helicopter pilot MacReady and Dr. Copper find there is both mysterious and disturbing. Dead bodies of persons who have taken their own lives, a burned out camp and one last thing: an unidentifiable corpse which they bring back to their own camp to examine.

Blair begins to perform an autopsy and finds nothing unusual with the corpse, even though the grotesque exterior would make him think otherwise. Reviewing some video recordings that the Norwegians made detailing the discovery and excavation of an object under the ice lead MacReady and Norris to investigate the dig site. Again, they discover something astounding: an alien craft that had been buried under the ice for over thousands of years.

Clark puts the husky that came to the American camp, into the kennel with the other dogs. As soon as Clark leaves, the dog quickly transforms out of its guise as a husky and into a multi-tentacled creature and begins to attack the other dogs in the kennel.

The noise brings everyone to the kennels where they are witness to a terrifying sight. The creature, still attacking the dogs with it's multiple tentacles, is constantly changing shape and attempts to escape. MacReady orders Childs to burn it with a flamethrower which kills the creature.

Blair examines this creature and finds what it was doing: the creature was attempting to copy the other dogs in the kennel and if it had enough time it would have accomplished this. Blair ponders the implications of this and withdraws to his office. The creature corpses are moved into storage, but one is not quite dead and attacks Bennings. The creature doesn't quite finish transforming into Bennings before it is discovered and destroyed. Everyone in the camp comes to realize that it is possible that one of

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