The character names are nearly all the same, most of the roles they serve are the same, and the gruesome way the Thing assimilates is much closer to Carpenter’s gory version than the 1951 adaptation. What is most revealing about the story is how closely Carpenter hewed to the source material. Copper, Commander Garry, and the rest of the men fight for survival and to stop The Thing from escaping the station at all costs and dooming the world. Of course, the alien is not dead and it quickly escapes and begins assimilating the men creating a perfect copy that can fool the others. They bring the body back to their camp and after some discussion decide to thaw it out to conduct testing on the corpse. While investigating a magnetic anomaly the team discovers an alien ship and a frozen body. The novella was published in 1938 and tells the story of American men stationed at Big Magnet research station in Antarctica. The basis for both the 1951 movie The Thing From Another World and John Carpenter’s much more faithful adaptation, 1982’s The Thing, (the less said about the 2011 remake/prequel the better) the novella Who Goes There? is still a relevant chiller that proves surprisingly effective. Drew Struzan’s iconic poster image for John Carpenter’s The Thing.
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