the thing

John Carpenter's The Thing was the first Blu Ray I bought.

It was also the first Blu Ray I watched.  Or at least, the first Blu Ray I tried to watch.  I then discovered that there's actually no Blu Ray player software built into windows, so I had to install Power DVD.

I then discovered that there appears to be some protection that appears to prevent you from playing Blu Rays via a DVI cable.  I knew there was region protection and if I was to eventually play Blu Rays from other regions I'd need some form of cracking software.  I hadn't appreciated I'd also need it in order to watch any Blu Rays from a computer on my telly.

That's a long winded way of saying that by the time I'd sorted all those issues out I'd actually acquired several Blu Rays (and had basically decided that actually I need to buy a proper region free Blu-Ray, but that doing so appears to be a bit of a hassle, as players are not (yet anyway) sold as being multi-region like DVD players are) and watched them.

So why did I pick a cult SF/horror film from the early 1980s as my first Blu Ray?

Well The Thing represents something of a high water mark in terms of physical creature effects.  Yes it does look a bit dated, but what makes up for that is the wild, twisted imagination.  There's stuff in there that is so bonkers they've still not really matched it.  And the fact it was done physically then makes it even more special.

Really The Thing is two movies stuck together.  One film is a paranoid action thriller and the other is a bonkers creature horror film.  Of course this could have been a real disaster, but both elements work so well and gel together so well they end up enhancing each other, rather than detracting.

Of course, the film isn't without its flaws.  On particularly big one is quite why these people are down in the Antarctic anyway.  There are quite a few of them and they're a real rag tag bunch of misfits, which is fair enough, but why are they there?  Are they supposed to be scientists?  Only one of them actually appears to be a scientist, and one a doctor.  Some of the rest have clear jobs (radio operator, pilot), but the rest are just random people.

And the other question is how come they have so many guns and, more importantly, flame throwers?  You could maybe understand there being one rifle, just in case, but there aren't any particularly nasty threats down there.  For example, it's a common misconception that polar bears live on the south pole, but in fact they're entirely based at the north pole.

There are penguins, seals and whales of course, but they're hardly a threat.  And even if they were, a rifle or two would be okay, but flame throwers?  And we're talking proper flame throwers, not improvised things.

But setting things like that asides, as a film it's really great (well, assuming horror his your thing, of course).