“The Thing” is easily considered one of the best horror efforts from genre king John Carpenter, and the movie, released in 1982, failed to impress critics or audiences, but during the era of home rentals and airing on TV developed a HUGE cult following among horror fans. A new documentary called “The Thing Expanded” is being promoted as the “definitive” companion to that impressive horror remake of the 1951 “The Thing from Another World” (directed by Christian Nyby and based on the highly-influentual novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr.).
Cast members such as Kurt Russell (MacReady), Keith David (Childs), Thomas G. Waites (Windows), David Clennon (Palmer), Peter Maloney (Bennings), Joel Polis (Fuchs), and Richard Masur (Clark) will be featured in new interviews alongside Carpenter, Dean Cundey (Cinematographer), Stuart Cohen (Co-producer), Todd C. Ramsay (Editor), Larry Franco (Producer and 1st Assistant Director), Guillermo del Toro, Frank Darabont, and Eli Roth.
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Set in an isolated Antarctica outpost, a group of Americans discovers that Norwegian scientists have dug up an alien ship buried in the ice only for an outbreak of sorts with the alien being able to replicate any living creature it comes in contact with multiple humans being replaced as they get picked-off one by one, leading to some intense paranoid-fuelled scenes, where everyone loses trust and they need to stop the alien from reaching the mainland. Ultimately, only two survive without the audience knowing 100% if either is still human.
Another huge element of the film, outside of the Cold War era paranoia becoming a great narrative tool, was the fantastic, practical VFX work by a very young Rob Bottin (with some help from the Stan Winston team and he would end up earning an Oscar statue for his work on “Total Recall” in 1991) as the effects guru in his early 20s, managed to make one of the best examples of why in-camera effects can age better than digital (Universal attempted a prequel movie and infamously replaced practical effects with rushed digital ones that didn’t quite work).
This documentary comes at an interesting time as Carpenter is said to be developing a follow-up to “The Thing.” Although we’re a little unclear what that will look like and if he’ll ultimately pull himself out of self-retirement to helm it. While he is launching a horror shooter video game in April with “John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando,” he notably hasn’t made a feature film since 2010’s “The Ward” as he’s been focusing on making music (scoring David Gordon Green‘s “Halloween” trilogy).
You can directly order the digital (April 2026) and Blu-Ray (May 2026) versions of “The Thing Expanded” right here. A trailer showcasing the doc’s extensive roster of participants can be viewed below.
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