MovieChat Forums > The Thing (1982) Discussion > Where did you first watch The Thing?

Where did you first watch The Thing?

posted 6 years ago by ebhaynz (3617)
18 replies | jump to latest

I saw The Thing on opening night June 25, 1982! I remember me and my friends Ken and Wes went to the Blue Ridge Cinema East, we knew nothing about this movie except I think John Carpenter was on David Letterman and he showed a clip of the dog transforming into The Thing. Anyway, I remember waiting for the movie to start and we found a wallet with no money it..but later Wes searched deeper and found a $10 or $20 hidden behind a flap, lucky him! There were very few people in the theater with us that night so maybe it's true the horror genre was not a popular draw that summer. That summer was a big one for movies, I think I had already seen Poltergeist, Psycho 2, Star Trek 2, Rocky 3, ET, and maybe even Firefox. All these movies already and it was the first month of summer school break. So yeah, here we were 3 high school kids on opening night of what turned out to be one of the greatest horror films ever. We were pleasantly surprised, shocked, and somewhat terrified that night..I remember going home and telling my dad how great a movie it was..reliving the movie all over again!

[–] Martoto (4467) 5 years ago

In my head. I was only five years old so wasn't at an age to be allowed to see it. But my dad saw it one night and the next morning at breakfast he described the ENTIRE movie to me. When I finally watched it as a teenager, the movie didn't differ greatly from what imagined except that I expected the petri dish thing to turn into lots of little disembodied hands (like Thing in the Adams Family but about six inches tall!) scurrying away!

[–] [deleted] 10 months ago

I first saw it when I was 13 years old, on television. I didn't like it, found it quite boring so it wasn't a movie I sought out to add to my horror movie collection.

I grew to like it more after revisiting it in my late teens and early 20s but it's definitely overrated in this day and age. I remember back in 2K5 it was something of a dark horse in the 'best horror movies of all time' discussions. It had a few fans but was often considered lesser to Halloween (1978), John Carpenter's most famous and beloved work.

These days The Thing is regularly voted the best horror movie of all time (it used to be The Exorcist, then it was The Shining, now it's The Things turn) and is the highest rated horror movie on Letterboxd. It's definitely considered to be better than Halloween (1978) in 2023.

Not sure why it got such a reappraisal... I think some people online championed it and it snowballed. People are like that. Back in 2k5 EVERYONE hated Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and now it's regularly considered a 'hidden gem' and the second best in it's franchise. Back when the 4Ks of the first four Halloweens were being released, Halloween III had the second most pre-orders (the original 1978 movie had the most of course).