The Thing (1982)

"Excellent Presentation of Carpenter's Classic"

John Carpenter's brilliant interpretation of John W Campbell Jr's classic story Who Goes There gets a director (and DP Dean Cundey) supervised 4k restoration from Arrow Films.

An Antarctic research team have their routine disrupted when a Norwegian in a helicopter arrives doing his best to kill the dog he's been pursuing. The dog survives, unfortunately for everyone, because in fact it's a shapeshifting, tissue-absorbing, perfect-replica-making alien life form. Soon members of the team are starting to be killed off and / or replaced, leaving us with the age-old horror film question - who will survive and what will be left of them? 

One of the best horror films ever made, one of the best science fiction films ever made, and one of the best 1980s films ever made, all of that probably means I can venture to suggest John Carpenter's THE THING is one of the best films ever made full stop. It's certainly a superb exercise in the horror of paranoia, complemented by a splendid script (everything we see and hear is relevant); a fine ensemble of character actors; understated, claustrophobic music (Morricone was definitely the right choice) and of course Rob Bottin's amazing special effects. A financial disaster at the time for Universal (it was the summer of ET: The Extraterrestrial, and the company probably wasn't too bothered because they made ET as well), time has shown the film's enduring quality, and if any movie of the early 1980s deserves the 4k restoration treatment, this is it.

So how does the transfer compare with the old Universal Blu-ray most of us will have in our collections? Well, the Arrow 4k gives you a crisper image with more detail but the picture has been brightened considerably - here at HMC we had to turn the contrast way down on our monitor to finally get rid of all the picture noise, so be aware. On the other hand if you're happy with your Universal disc I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to upgrade.

Unless you want the extras, of course. The Universal disc extras have all been ported over, including the Carpenter / Russell commentary, the feature-length making of, featurettes, out-takes, behind the scenes stuff, trailers and more.

New to the Arrow disc is a new feature-length documentary 'Who Goes There?' which looks at the history of THE THING and includes new cast and crew interviews. '1982 - One Amazing Summer' is a new documentary about the movies released during the summer of 1982 (obviously) and you also get a new commentary track for THE THING from Mike White, Patrick Bromley and 'El Goro' who are all podcasters.

You also get Sean Hogan's short Frightfest tribute THE THING: 27000 HOURS (with an optional Hogan commentary as well), No Thing Left Unsaid - a video record of a panel at the 2017 Texas Frightmare weekend, and three short featurettes about fans of the movie who have gone the extra distance in their love for the film.

Arrow Films have done that as well, by the way. A 4k transfer and lots and lots and lots of extras. You also get a poster, lobby cards, and a book. If you haven't got THE THING on Blu-ray, get this. If you already have, chances are you're going to want this version as well. An excellent package. 

The 4k restoration of John Carpenter's THE THING is out on Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 23rd October 2017