Two movies called The Thing came out of the same 1938 story. They ended up with opposite monsters.

The story is Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, published in Astounding in August 1938. Men at an Antarctic station thaw out something from the ice that can copy any living thing, memories included. The question is which of them is still human.

The Thing from Another World (1951) dropped that idea. Its alien is a tall, blood-drinking plant, played by James Arness and kept mostly in the shadows. The station moves to the Arctic and fills up with Air Force men. A reporter hears the scientist's theory and says, "An intellectual carrot. The mind boggles." Howard Hawks produced it. Christian Nyby has the director credit, but it's widely regarded as Hawks's picture.

That film fits 1951. The threat comes from outside, the scientist who wants to talk to it is the fool, and the last line is "Keep watching the skies."

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) went back to the book instead of remaking the Hawks film. Antarctica again. The imitation again. Kurt Russell's MacReady runs the blood test again, with a hot wire in each man's sample. Carpenter has said that scene is why he wanted the job. This time nobody looks up. The men watch each other.

Rob Bottin built the creature effects. He was 22. "I actually lived at Universal for a year and five weeks without taking a day off," he said later. When the effects work wrapped, he was hospitalized for exhaustion. Stan Winston built the dog in the kennel scene to take some of the load and turned down screen credit. The end titles say "Special Thanks to Stan Winston."

It opened June 25, 1982, two weeks after E.T. and the same day as Blade Runner. It cost about $15 million and made about $20 million in the US and Canada. Carpenter later said, "The one I took the hardest was The Thing."

The 1951 film went into the National Film Registry in 2001. Carpenter's joined it in the 2025 class.