The first film I ever saw on VHS was The Thing (originally released 1982). I’m not sure exactly how long after the cinema release it was, but I remember I was still in school, so I guess it was about 1983-84 and I was about 14-15 years old. A kid at school had just got a video recorder and I went over to his house to see it. It was one of those giant top-loader things. I was totally in awe of it. I thought the film was pretty neat too. 🙂
So 29 years after the first film was made they decided to make a prequel called The Thing (2011). If you’ve seen the original, then you’ll remember the scene at the start where the Norwegian helicopter is chasing the dog and a guy is taking pot-shots at it. The film is based around the events in the Norwegian camp prior to the first scene in the original film.
So how was it? Pretty darn good in my opinion. It’s hard to watch the original without feeling how dated it is. The new film is a fairly similar plot, in fact it might as well be a remake, but the visuals are brought right up to date. It’s a bit of a gore-fest at times and it makes you jump big-time on several occasions. If you liked the original, this is a worthy remake/prequel.
Cheers
Tim…
The Thing… | The ORACLE-BASE Blog http://t.co/hWKsOWjV
The poor reviews scared me away, now you have me itching again!
Yes. I saw the poor reviews, which in my opinion were unfair. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but it is a pretty neat remake/prequel to the original. It had a few people clapping by the end of the film, which always makes me smile. 🙂
Looking forward to seeing this though the John Carpenter version is not the original. The original is a 1953 black and white with James Arness as the creature. I remember seeing it as a kid (we’re about the same age by the way) and it scared the begeezus out of me and I loved. I loved the effects that Carpenter used but the “feel” was no no way as creepy as the black and white film.
Here’s an IMDB link to the original black and white:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/
sorry got the dates confused with another black and white favourite. It’s 1951 for the The Thing
I don’t recall what film I saw first on VHS. I do know I was making films on pro-quality Betamax at the company I worked at in 1981, including a humorous mini-documentary of Robby the Robot showing up at a company party. Much more fun than the programming that was my job at the time.
I also recall seeing the original original on TV as a kid, I think on Million $ Movie (KHJ-TV).