8 Classic Monster Movies You Never Knew Were Reboots

John Carpenter's science fiction masterpiece was a remake of 1951's Thing From Another World. Unlike many of the examples on this list, both versions of the film are comparable in quality, if incredibly different from each other.

The original version is an excellent, tautly-paced monster film. The film does not revel in showing off the Thing, only partially because the early 1950's are not known for their chilling monster design. Instead, the tension is ratcheted up by having the Thing kill characters offscreen, leaving their bodies for others to find. Near the end, we see that it's Gunsmoke's James Arness dressed up as a vampire space carrot, but they kept him in the shadows and the film ended on a wonderfully paranoid note (KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES).

But the reason that Carpenter's version has supplanted it in the poplar imagination has everything to do with how he presents the title creature. His Thing isn't just scary because it wants to eat you. It inspires real terror because it is so utterly alien in both its design and motivations. We never even get to see what it looked like before it began assimilating Earth creatures, but we do get to see it when it mimics them flawlessly.

So yes, keep watching the skies, but keep watching everyone else too.