This is great!! One of my favorite movies of all time. In fact, I watched it this past weekend as the ice was beginning to fall. It's a tradition I have whenever there's a winter storm that's trapping me inside the house. This film is such a favorite of mine, that it's one of a few that I always keep loaded on my iPad.
John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing is one of the new inductees on the National Film Registry. This year's class also includes Inception, The Karate Kid, Glory, and The Incredibles. The Truman Show and White Christmas made the list too.
In adding The Thing to the registry, the Library of Congress said this of the movie: "Moody, stark, often funny and always chilling, this science fiction horror classic follows Antarctic scientists who uncover a long-dormant, malevolent extraterrestrial presence. The Thing revolutionized horror special effects and offers a brutally honest portrait of the results of paranoia and exhaustion when the unknown becomes inescapable."
It's now well over four full decades later, and The Thing is no less startling and engrossing than it was when it first came to theaters. After more than forty years and we are still discussing and debating this movie. Who was who, when, and where? What happened to the blood? That one is a particularly favorite mystery to ruminate on, one I cannot figure out at all (Palmer maybe? When did he turn exactly anyway?).
There is another storm coming. Starting tonight. Current projections are that here in the Upstate of South Carolina we may get 5 to 8 inches of snow. We're not going anywhere, again. So I guess I'll be watching The Thing once more. Maybe the answers will hit me this time...
