10 Snowbound Horror Movies For Christmas
2. The Thing
The archetypal man-in-a-suit monster movie, 1951’s The Thing From Another World has oodles of “period charm” but not much in the way of shock value as a creature described as an intelligent carrot dispatches the scientists at a lonely Arctic outpost after being accidentally thawed.
If the point of a remake is to refashion the story for a different era, then John Carpenter’s version qualifies as one of the most successful remakes of all time. From Rob Bottin’s effects, which allow the creature to transform into an animal or person, to Dean Cundey’s atmospheric cinematography, this is the most thrilling reinvention of a 1950s monster movie you’ve ever seen.
If you watched the picture on network television, however, you saw an edited version shorn of violence, gore and profanity, with added voice-over and a pointless “alternate” ending that recycled footage from earlier in the movie. It was enough to send fans scurrying to the rental version, where they saw Rob Bottin’s effects in all their uncut glory – and immediately resolved to become filmmakers. Famous fans include Robert Rodriguez (who references the movie in Planet Terror) and James Gunn (check out the store owned by “R.J. MacReady” in Slither).