Read on for some spoiler-filled reaction comics!
I felt so bad for Dog Guy! I was totally sympathizing...poor puppies. :(
This movie was great but it was SO SCARY to me. Something about the suspense coupled with the gruesome, CGI-free special effects just struck a chord with me. And that simple soundtrack with the "bump bump...bump bump"--so effective!
At the same time, it was funny how I knew what was coming, because so many subsequent works have borrowed from The Thing. I was flashing back in particular to episodes of South Park and The X-Files.
The tropes of a quarantine situation / witch hunt work so well for developing dread...and then you've got the added time limit with the storm moving in, the communications going out, and the much larger picture of springtime taking the infection global if they don't kill the thing before it kills all of them or freezes itself...so tense!
It was dreadful watching characters turn on one another and give into their worst and most basic instincts...even our hero commits murder out of fear and self-preservation blown out of perspective. I loved how the movie made you doubt EVERYONE--the dog sneaking up on Nauls in the kitchen fades to black rather than showing what happened, the temporary loss of lights puts everyone in the gray, Windows cuts his finger just out of view, Dr. Blair is alone in his hut unsupervised, Childs goes missing from his post and runs into the storm for some reason...we have to take people at their word, and end up trusting no one. It's terrifying!
I'm reading the Wikipedia entry for the film, and laughing in horror at the "Annual viewings" section, which claims that The Thing and The Shining are regularly viewed by the winter crew at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station.
