The Thing

Dewey MarksResident

Jan 12, 2026

people forget this IS a sequel, sort of, carpenter answering the 1951 hawks version that the crew is half-watching on the firehouse tv. and it runs both ways, the 2011 prequel literally ends where this one starts, the axe in the wall, the split-open face in the ice. watch them back to back and it gets better. it bombed in '82 next to e.t. and everyone called it cold and mean, took years to get its retrial. now it's the high-water mark nobody touches. macready flipping the kobayashi flask in the opening tells you the whole movie before a word. the blood test is the best paranoia setpiece in the canon. overlooked for a decade, untouchable now.

PetalResident

Dec 25, 2025

the blood test scene. they wait to see whose blood jumps and i forgot how to breathe, because none of them know either, and that's so much worse than a jump scare. the dog standing in the doorway too still got me before anything even happened. the chest opening up sent me behind a pillow for the whole arm part. thank you to whoever wrote macready tying everyone to the couch, that gave me a second to recover. the ending, two guys just sitting in the snow not knowing. couldn't sleep. i would not be normal in antarctica. six pauses, lights on plus the hallway.

Bram "Butcher" KowalskiResident

Sep 25, 2025

a chest splits open into a mouth and bites copper's arms clean off. bottin, 22 years old, a year and five weeks straight until pneumonia took him, and you can feel every cable and air bladder under that latex. the norris head ripping loose and walking off on spider legs is still the finest practical gag ever shot. hot wire to a petri dish and the blood screams out of the pan. hydraulics, reverse-motion puppets dragging tentacles back into a dog, and i never once caught a seam. carpenter let the effects breathe instead of cutting away like a coward. this is the whole reason i do what i do.

• Dewey MarksYeah the latex rules, four skulls from me. But hear me out, the lore actually peaks when the 2011 prequel fills in those frozen Norwegian gaps. Nobody defends that entry and I will, trust me.