The Thing From Another World, a creepy film set in Alaska about an alien that is not that foreign to the people on earth. It's a story that incorporates science and the military and tries to mold them into one alien fighting team. But of course those two things are like oil and water, share the same traits but don't like to mix! However it sure is interesting to see them try and that is whats going on in The Thing.
So things start off when Scotty, a journalist, meets up with some airforce men at a club of some sort. The guys are playing card and get a call to fly up north to some spot in the middle of no where Alaska to investigate some mysterious aircraft. They get up there and land at a camp of scientists, among the scientists is a woman named Nikki, with whom Captain Hendry has had some romantic drunken past with. Nikki's character is interesting because she takes the upper hand with Hendry at some points in the movie, and her "domesticity" shines through later on to lead to their win over the alien. They eventually go out and find the downed aircraft, its some how frozen in the ice. They all circle around the shape and look at each other and excitement/horror when the scientists are excited thinking this aircraft is a UFO. They decide to use some heating device to melt the ice and recover the aircraft, but something goes wrong and they accidentally blow it up. Scotty is all mad because they are ruining world changing discoveries! The ship was not the only thing they found however, someone spots a figure in the ice! They order some men around and they chip the figure out of the ice and dog sled it back to the science camp. Immediately once back at the camp the scientists and the airforce men are on opposing sides. Hendry is hellbent on following orders and Carrington wants to thaw the being out for the sake of scientific discovery! Thus the start of the battle between the military forces and the scientists. So Hendry takes the body into a room and breaks a window to keep it frozen. He sets his men up to do intervals of keeping watch over the alien, meanwhile they are trying to radio out but are having a hard time. One of the men set to watch the alien gets creeped out by the alien looking through the ice so he throws a blanket over it. He of course doesn't realize that the blanket is a heating blanket and its turn on! So the ice melts and the alien is alive! The military man freaks out and shoots the alien but nothing phases it. Everyone comes to see what the commotion is about and the alien has escaped to the outside where he is battling the sled dogs. A few dogs get the short end of the deal and get their blood sucked by the alien, but they did rip off one of his hands. The scientists are checking out the arm and find out it is some sort of plant, like a horrible carrot creature. They find some blood on it and the arm starts to move on its own! The scientists discover a dead dog in the greenhouse drained of its blood and come to the conclusion the alien had been in the greenhouse and will come back. Carrington puts three people on watch to wait for the alien to come back and to not tell Hendry. They also discover that the arm has seed pods on it, and of course Carrington who wants to study this alien because they must be much more advanced than us here on earth takes some seeds and starts to grow his own aliens in his little greenhouse in the arctic. The alien comes back and attacks the men and kills two of them. The remaining survives with flesh wounds, also he tells everyone the alien had the others hanging to drain their blood. (The early obsession of zombies? Blood sucking aliens...mmm.) Hendry finds out the blood supply they need to help the injured man has gone missing, Nikki discovers where it is going however when she finds some of Carringtons notes. She shows Hendry and all hell breaks loose. Everyone finds out what Carrington has been doing with the blood supply, feeding alien pods! Hendry gets orders from the man on the radio telling him he must keep the alien alive. Hendry thinks this is the worst possible idea and decides to go against orders. Finally a moment where the military is betraying itself! The time comes when Nikki saves the day, they are all gathered around trying to think of how to kill the alien, Nikki is filling coffees or something. They are thinking of how to kill a vegetable and Nikki just blurts out "Boil it!", brilliant! They stage a death scene with kerosene and a flare gun. The alien comes barging in and they douse him and shoot away, they whole place goes up in flames and Nikki almost burns down in a couch cushion mess. It doesn't really work that well because the alien gets away and runs into the winter abyss. So they must make up a new plan, electrocute it! The alien starts to show intelligence and cuts the gas line or something, Hendry must use the generators. While waiting for the alien to come in and get killed, Carrington pulls the plug on the power, holding people at gun point. Things escalate into Carrington running into the alien confessing his love for science but getting swatted away like a bug. Guess the alien doesn't really care about science and wants blood! Hendry successfully electrocutes the alien, actually he burns the crap out of him. Nikki and Hendry start to take things a little further and Scotty finally gets his big story! Ending the film with the phrase "Watch the skies, everywhere, keep looking, and keep watching the skies"
The Thing was a jam packed movie, the dialogue was so new and fresh than what we have watched. They talked smart but it was entertaining and kept my attention. I do with the alien looked more scary or different than Frankenstein's Monster. The alien just was not that scary, to me the best part was the interaction between the rest of the cast. Nikki and Hendry's relationship was fun and I felt like they genuinely liked each other as friends also. The alien being a sort of vegetable was pretty funny as well, although he resembled nothing like a vegetable. The idea of something growing and thinking is something Them! and The Thing have in common. Although a vegetable growing and ants growing are very different its still something that seems not so scary in it's "natural" state as tiny ant and a carrot.
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