Close

Blu-ray Review: John Carpenter’s THE THING – Collector’s Edition

Dec 31, 2016 Posted by in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

It is the winter of 1982 and a dozen men are working at the U.S. National Science Institute’s Station 4 outpost in Antarctica. A helicopter from the Norwegian station a few miles away flies overhead, the pilot is acting strangely, throwing bombs from the air at a wolf on the ground. After crash-landing and firing at the U.S. scientists, the man ends up blowing his copter and himself up. With a whiteout approaching, pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) and one of the doctors head to quickly check out the Norwegian station for clues as to what made this man go crazy. What they find is a gruesome sight of burnt bodies and an odd, almost human-looking mutated creature, which they bring back to their lab to autopsy.

They men quickly discover that the Norwegians had dug up and awoken a deadly creature from space that had been frozen in the ice for almost 100K years. The creature has the ability to transform itself to look like anyone or anything…and now this Thing is loose on their own base. With whiteout conditions outside, there is nowhere to run. So soon it’s full on paranoia as the men wonder who they can trust and who has already been replaced by this creature. They must quickly come up with a plan to destroy this Thing before it kills them all and has the chance to escape to the mainland and wipe out the world’s population.

It had been a long time since I last watched this movie, and I must say it holds up really well. The film does an excellent job at establishing the different characters, and slowly building the tension and paranoia. You feel the same sense of who can be trusted as these men—the testing of the blood scene still made me jump, as did several other tense scenes. The special effects also hold up tremendously well—in this day and age of CGI-everything effects, the practical effects used in this film still look quite remarkable and as freaky as ever. As I was watching I couldn’t help but remark at the film’s amazing cast, which also includes Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, Keith David, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, David Clennon, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis and Thomas G. Waites.

The Thing looks and sounds amazing in this Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release. The picture is crisp and detailed without an excessive amount of grain. If it wasn’t for some of the computer technology and the men’s beards/cothing you wouldn’t even know this film was over 30 years old! The audio track provides clear dialogue, and while film’s score tends to be a bit front-heavy, the surround channels are used nicely to immerse the viewer in the environment—you can hear the chilling winds all around you. This Collector’s Edition release provides a new 4.1 audio track in addition to the 5.1 audio track included on previous releases, but I didn’t really notice any huge difference between the two.

Shout! Factory has been doing an excellent job with the supplemental material in its line of Collector’s Edition Blu-rays, and this release is no different. In addition to porting all of the features from previous DVD & Blu-ray releases—a director/star audio commentary, trailers, photo galleries, radio and TV spots, and over three hours of outtakes, behind-the-scenes, vintage and retrospective featurettes—this release also includes two brand new commentaries with the film’s cinematographer and co-producer, as well as almost three hours of new interviews and retrospective and behind-the-scenes featurettes. The network TV broadcast version of film is also included on one of the discs.

The discs comes packed in a standard Blu-ray case with a slipcover. The insert inside the cover is reversible, giving the viewer a choice in how to display this title in his or her collection. The alternate view for this title features the original poster art for the film.



What’s Included:

Film: (1:48:34)

  • 1080p / Widescreen 2.35:1
  • Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 4.1 NEW, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
  • Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

  • Theatrical and Teaser Trailers
    • Theatrical Trailers (3:27)
      Two trailers
    • German Trailer (1:47)
    • Teaser Trailer (1:22)
  • TV Spots (1:35)
    Three 30-second TV spots
  • Radio Spots (2:27)
  • Still Galleries
    Use the chapter buttons on the remote to step through each photo gallery or allow them to auto-advance every 5 seconds.

    • Behind the Scenes (4:47) – 55 photos
    • Lobby Cards and Press Stills (4:18) – 49 photos
    • Programs (1:44) – 19 photos
    • Posters (1:59) – 21 photos
    • Storyboards (2:34) – 28 photos
    • Production Artwork (1:24) – 14 photos
  • Commentaries
    There are three audio commentaries, two of them new to to this release. All three provide interesting behind-the-scenes production stories an anecdotes, stories about the casting, filming conditions and more.

    • Audio Commentary with Dean Cundey NEW (1:48:34)
      Rob Galluzzo from blumhouse.com and the Shockwaves podcast leads a discussion with cinematographer Dean Cundey.
    • Audio Commentary with Co-Producer Stuart Cohen NEW (1:48:34)
      Michael Felsher, owner/operator of Red Shirt Pictures, leads a discussion with co-producer Stuart Cohen.
    • Audio Commentary by Director John Carpenter and Actor Kurt Russell (1:48:34)
      This entertaining and informative discussion between director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell is ported from the previous Blu-ray release.
  • Interviews
    • Requiem for a Shapeshifter NEW (28:39)
      In this brand new interview, filmmaker Mick Garris talks with director John Carpenter about how the film came about, why he chose to remake The Thing as his first studio film, the use of widescreen, playing music and more.
    • The Men of Outpost 31 NEW (51:14)
      In this excellent retrospective featurette, the cast members recall stories of landing their roles, their characters, working with John Carpenter, the original film and story, working with the ensemble cast, working with the dogs and flamethrowers (not together), the cold temperatures, some of the unused death scenes, the initial poor reviews, and more. The participnts recount lots of fun production stories. Includes interviews with Keith David (“Childs”), Wilford Brimley (“Blair”), David Clennon (“Palmer”), Joel Polis (“Fuchs”), Thomas G. Waites (“Windows”), Peter Maloney (“Bennings”) and Richard Masur (“Clark”).
    • Assembling and Assimilation NEW (11:09)
      Editor Todd Ramsay talks about some of the scenes that were added or re-shot.
    • Behind the Chameleon NEW (25:26)
      In part one, Starting Things Off, visual effects supervisor Peter Kuran and minitures supervisor Susan Turner talk about creating the opening title sequence.
      In part two, Making Things Up, special make-up effects artist Brian Wade and foam latex supervisor Rob Burman talk about creating the creatures.
      In part three, Putting Things in Motion, dimensional animation creator Randall William Cook and animation effects cinematographer Jim Aupperle talk about sculpting and bringing the creatures to life via stop motion, and show some unused stop motion sequences.
      In the final part, One Final Thing, the participants give their thoughts on the completed film.
    • Sounds from the Cold NEW (14:53)
      Special sound effects and music supervicor Alan Howarth and supervising sound editor David Lewis Yewdall talk about the sound design of the film.
    • Between the Lines NEW (15:58)
      Author Alan Dean Foster talks about the process of writing film novelizations, and being in the unique situation of writing a book based on a screenplay based on an existing novel.
  • More of The Thing
    • Network TV Broadcast Version of The Thing (1:33:45)
      Presented in 1.33:1 full frame 480i format the video is nowhere near as good as that of the theatrical version on the first disc. One difference I noticed immediately is the addition of narration to introduce the setting and characters at the start of the film.
    • John Carpenter’s The Thing: Terror Takes Shape (1:24:03)
      Initially included on the 2004 Collector’s Edition DVD release, this extensive retrospective feature includes interviews with cast members Kurt Russell (“MacReady”), Richard Masur, Charles Hallahan (“Norris”) and Joel Polis, special effects artists Rob Bottin (special effects make-up), Stan Winston (additional creature effects), Peter Kuran (special optical effects), Albert Whitlock (matte artist) and Susan Turner (modelmaker), and filmmakers David Foster (producer), Bill Lancaster (screenwriter), Dean Cundey (director of photography). Todd Ramsay (film editor), John Lloyd (production designer) and John Carpenter (director). The participants provide a detailed look at the making of the film and gi
    • The Making of a Chilling Tale (5:14)
      Vintage behind-the-scenes promotional featurette. Includes interviews with director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell. Presented in Full Frame format.
    • The Making of The Thing (9:20)
      A longer version of the previous featurette.
  • Featurettes
    • The Art of Mike Ploog NEW (12:21)
      Montage of storyboard artwork by artist Mike Ploog, who also contributed heavily to the film’s creature designs.
    • Back into the Cold NEW (11:16)
      Todd Cameron of Outpost31.com narrates this slideshow from his trip to revisit some of the original filming locations in the summer of 2003.
    • Outtakes (5:19)
      Collection of deleted scenes and descriptions of deleted scenes along with still photos.
    • Vintage Featurettes (13:20)
      Collection of vintage promotional featurettes featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews.
    • Vintage Product Reel (19:38)
      Twenty minute version of the film used for promotion.
    • Vintage Behind the Scenes Footage (2:02)
      Raw behind-the-scenes footage.
    • Annotated Production Archive (54:12)
      Production photo slideslow interspersed with text describing the context.

 


Final Thoughts:

My Rating
Film:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Must Own

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a thoroughly-entertaining piece of cinema that will have you on the edge of your seat. The film, including the special effects, still hold up extremely well over thirty years later. Shout! Factory has assembled a stellar release with excellent picture and sound as well as almost 3 hours of new bonus material and two new audio commentaries—in addition to the wealth of bonus material that had already been available on previous home video releases. This is a Must Own for any fan of the film, and definitely worth the double-dip if you already own a previous release. I’d also highly recommend anyone looking for a good thriller to pick this up.