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It actually didn't occur to me until yesterday how directly the lineage of The Thing can be traced to Alien. I think it was seeing the flamethrowers which did it.
I wanna say the problems I had with Alien on my last viewing are fixed in The Thing. In Alien, I preferred the world building to the jump scares, and felt the movie lost steam once everything was established.
The Thing really didn't have any world building. They're in an arctic outpost. World's built. The jump scares aren't pulling me out of something superior.
Buuuut it's been 30+ years since I've seen The Thing, so my glasses may be highly rose-tinted.
It's probably Carpenter's best IMO. Prince of Darkness could have been the best, but it's held back by parts which are almost parody-like in their awfulness.
You have to remember that the jump scares in Alien were a lot more original when it was released. As ground-breaking as it was as a sci-fi, it was also ground breaking as a horror movie. An unholy shit-ton of movies owe more than people tend to notice to Alien.
Also, its arguably the greatest original monster since the classics as well. By which I mean Vampires, Mummies, Zombies and werewolves. Its a wonderful blend of new and borrowed biology that makes it potentially the most realistic too. No magic required, the insectoid qualities lend it huge believability.
Sorry, I'm thread-jacking here.
The Thing can also get a shout for original monster creation. There have been a number of homages paid from the Polymorph in Red Dwarf to an episode of The X-Files which is dangerously close to the movie.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
You have to remember that the jump scares in Alien were a lot more original when it was released. As ground-breaking as it was as a sci-fi, it was also ground breaking as a horror movie. An unholy shit-ton of movies owe more than people tend to notice to Alien.
Also, its arguably the greatest original monster since the classics as well. By which I mean Vampires, Mummies, Zombies and werewolves. Its a wonderful blend of new and borrowed biology that makes it potentially the most realistic too. No magic required, the insectoid qualities lend it huge believability.
Well, and as I've mentioned before, I'm not really what you'd call a fan of horror.
And I have no complaints about the world building whatsoever, which is the category I'd put the Alien design in. That all still holds up. The only competitors I can think of are Blade Runner and 2001.
Now, The Thing, at least as I remember it, is ****ing tight. You can kinda say The Thing is to Reservoir Dogs as Alien is to Pulp Fiction.
Pulp Fiction is generally more popular, but it lacked the laser focus of Reservoir Dogs.