Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Superb look back featuring most of the major players, from the producers (who are rarely to be found in such documentaries) to the "talent" (the actors). THE THING is one of the few genuinely MYSTERIOUS movies that draws you in from the opening moments (the chase across the snow) and manages to hold you riveted until the final fade out- thanks primarily to director John Carpenter. (It's amazing to me that no one's written a detailed biography of Carpenter: surely his insights into low budget movie-making alone would be worthy of study- not to mention his childhood forays into filmmaking and self-publishing and his work on the Academy-Award winning short, THE RESURRECTION OF BRONCHO BILLY.) (Better still: Carpenter's AUTOBIOGRAPHY would be even better...)

I agree with an acquaintance I've made at this web site: that there are often certain defining movie experiences in one's life that either lead one to embrace a genre or turn away from it. In my case, seeing "The Thing" for the first time turned me into a loyal horror fan. A skillful, intense, creepy, downbeat, wildly imaginative (in terms of the special effects), and more faithful second adaptation of John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?" (after "The Thing from Another World" of 1951), it found its audience not in its original theatrical run (where both the critical and public reactions were pretty stormy) but on video in the years to come, and has become incredibly influential; it's now more than a mere cult movie but often regarded as a genre classic (although, to be fair, it does still have its detractors). In fact, it's had a kind of staying power that some movies that have been big box office successes haven't had. This superb documentary, basically consisting of sit down interviews, goes through virtually the entire process of making the movie, from conception to execution to aftermath. Interviewees include director John Carpenter, screenwriter Bill Lancaster, producer David Foster, cinematographer Dean Cundey, production designer John Lloyd, and editor Todd Ramsay, makeup and creature creator Rob Bottin, additional creature effects creator Stan Winston, optical effects contributor Peter Kuran, model maker Susan Turner, legendary matte artist Albert Whitlock, and cast members Kurt Russell, Richard Masur, Charles Hallahan, and Joel Polis. Lots of interesting tidbits are shared, with Carpenter discussing the genesis of the project, Lancaster mentioning the aspects of the story that intrigued him the most, Bottin (who comes off as a really bright, cheerful, enthusiastic guy) regaling us with stories of takes gone awry (they sound funny now, but have to have been depressing at the time), while he and Winston go into detail on the creation of their monsters, Lloyd bringing up a potentially disastrous incident (and doing so with disarming good humour), and the actors talking about how they approached playing their characters. One telling detail is that Russell, Hallahan, and Masur all mention that fans often name this movie as being one of the movies, or *the* movie, that they love the most out of all the things they've done. But perhaps the most delightful aspect (for this fan, anyway) is seeing such things as vintage 'making of' footage, stills, storyboards, and the like, as well as hearing Whitlock discuss his technique. For anybody who's fond of the movie itself, seeing this engaging documentary is a true no-brainer. Ten out of 10.

On the DVD of The Thing you'll find this making-of documentary, that was put together almost twenty years later. While this does indulge in the silly gimmick of every chapter name utilizing the title card of the film itself, it is an excellently put together, very entertaining and quite informative piece. It consists of interviews with cast and crew, both groups having plenty to say and being a joy to listen to, behind-the-scenes footage, concept art/examples of how stuff did look or could have and finally clips from the movie, as well as from a couple of others. A specific highlight is Rob Bottin, whose hard work(and I mean that, he actually went to the hospital from exhaustion after they wrapped) helped make the piece as amazing as it was and is. He did just about all of the special effects, and he's a blast to listen to and watch. A comic book fan who was in his early twenties when he worked on the production, he's got a certain manic enthusiasm to him. He is a lot of fun, for both the anecdotes and the breakdown of some of what he created. In general you get to hear a lot about how it was on set, and how they achieved the many tricky aspects. It never becomes too technical to follow for people who don't live and breathe Hollywood, and it never lingers too long. Coming in at 83 minutes, feature-length, almost an hour and a half, this manages to remain worth the energy and time spent on it, throughout. The pacing is spot-on. There is a little love-fest going on, but mostly, it stays on point. I would say that for anyone into John Carpenter and this of his directorial efforts in particular, this alone is reason enough for getting the disc. I recommend this to any fan of him, anyone else who was employed on it, and the silver screen release itself. 10/10

As a huge fan, since its release, of John Carpenter's now-classic "The Thing," I was ecstatic to find out that this was included in the DVD version of the movie, but I have to admit that I was also disappointed as well. There'd been a rumor for nearly two decades (perpetrated by Fangoria magazine) that the brilliant Rob Bottin had actually made much more of a dynamic final scene than the one we now see, but that Carpenter had "chickened out" and cut alot of it at the last minute. So, I figured this documentary would show the "real" ending, especially since the DVD box advertized that there were "deleted scenes." Alas, all you see, when it comes to that final scene, is some home-movie footage of a tiny model being animated by the stop-motion process. I guess we'll never know if that rumor was true or not. Oh well, as stated above, the doc as a whole is still wonderful, with Director Carpenter, star Russell, and several others of the cast and crew, reminiscing and recanting. Rob Bottin rules!!!