![]() (The 2011 prequel, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is sadly nowhere near as sharp.)įor the high-minded: Sometimes a creature feature is also a thoughtful, moving character drama about a wounded family. And underneath it all, it’s a sly takedown of American cold-war paranoia, race, identity politics, and our rigid notions of masculinity. There are some really goopy scenes in this one, balanced by wonderfully severe, composed shots of the Antarctic research station where it all goes down. The Thing can look like a perfect copy of any living thing…when it’s not busting out in whipping tentacles, slimy appendages, and toothy maws. This is the creature to end all features–a shape-shifting, protoplasmodic alien that gobbles up other life forms by infecting them with a single cell of its own. Campbell Jr.’s novella Who Goes There? is a creature feature for audiences who don’t mind a little splash with their scares. Together with great cast chemistry, a tight script, and some great ad libs (“You’re gonna need a bigger boat,”) it all came together into one of the scariest man-vs-nature movies of all time.įor the strong of stomach: John Carpenter’s 1982 version of The Thing, drawing from both the 1951 Howard Hawks film The Thing From Another World and John W. But when Bruce finally does emerge from the deep, he’s a true nightmare. Spielberg and his team suffered through twelve-hour shipboard days to capture the film’s now-iconic shots of fishing floats racing through the waves, swimmers yanked around by invisible teeth, and that big dorsal fin slicing the water. It takes forever for the shark to make its first appearance–famously due to the fact that the special effects crew was having a hard time with the robots. And it’s a great introduction to the genre because it’s so subtle. It just takes a little time and patience to search out the really good ones from the wonderful mess of low-budget space aliens and post-atomic giant termites (and tornado-borne sharks) crowding your Netflix queue.įor the first-time viewer: JAWS (1975) is the classic creature feature, as well as a damn good movie. But today’s creature features can have finesse too. ![]() And then there are what we might call creature features – gloriously gross, sensationally shabby, no-holds-barred celebrations of (wo)man vs. Some of the scariest horror out there is ambiguous and subtle, creeping you out with lingering unanswered questions.
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