John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

I finally saw John Carpenter's version of The Thing. I was a big fan of the 50s original The Thing From Another World (1951), plus I'm not a big fan of gore and I knew this movie was very bloody and I saw some of the special effects when I was younger, and got freaked out, so that made me hesitant to watch this for a while. But I really enjoyed this version. The story of course is about a team of scientists working in Antarctica when some Norwegians and a stray dog, the one living Norwegian is killed by the scientists who mistakenly think he was shooting at them when he was actually shooting at the dog. The scientists then

 take the dog into their camp and all the trouble begins when they discover "the dog" is actually a shape-shifting alien that can take over anyone's identity, also taking over  their body while doing so. This film has marvelous pacing and only a handful of scenes with the alien so as to create maximum suspense and scares. The film also has a marvelous cast with Kurt Russell as the lead, and Wilford Brimley ( the "diabeetus," guy) Keith David and several other great character actors as well. This movie is known for having some of the greatest special effects of all time, and  more than 30 years after its release I'd say they are still impressive and very unique. The 80s were the perfect time for The Thing to be remade, for one thing they now had much more impressive effects to make the monster scary and show it more often, and also the story's use as an allegory for fear of communism and the Russians was extremely fitting for the 80s as well. The original Thing From Another World has been argued by many to be an allegory for McCarthyism, and when you think about it, it  makes sense; Senator McCarthy was accusing everyone of being communist  even if they just knew people who were communist, they were assumed to

be communist also, just like in The Thing when people are assumed to be the Thing if they were in contact with that person, and citizens were asked to keep an eye on their friends and neighbors just like the characters in both versions of The Thing were. Also the 1980s was when the U.S.'s fear of/rivalry with Russia was at its peak, so the 1980s was a very apt time for a remake of The Thing, the film even ends with an ending that is symbolically a  prediction/warning about communism similar to Dr. Seuss' Butter Battle Book (1984) (I don't want to give away the ending however so if you are unfamiliar with that story you can look it up). All in all I was very impressed with The Thing and I give it a 5/5, You can view the trailer below: