No Talking Tuesday # 226

January 24th 2012



This Tuesday found me back in the screening room at work watching the blue-ray edition of John Carpenter's The Thing.

I vaguely remember seing it as a child and have always been fascinated by certain moments that I think really resonate on some deep level with our psychology. Specifically the scene with testing the blood samples, and the spider head freak out.

The movie definitely strikes me as more wince inducingly eighties and cheesy than I remembered it, but it also was successful for much of the same reasons most horror films were of that time, namely that they understood pacing and saved the horrific explicit scenes after you had already had time to acclimate, believe the setting and characters, something horror films the last fifteen years haven't figured out.

No list.