John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

Here's another very nice, bubble free (!!!) resin kit from The Alchemy Works based on the 1982 John Carpenter film, “The Thing”. At the time, the film wasn't all that successful because the oozing, morphing alien was a serious departure from Spielberg's cuddly ET alien which was released into theaters a few months before. However, it is still considered to be a ground breaking pre-CGI film with astounding make up and mechanical effects.

Additionally, though promoted as a remake to the 1951 classic of the same name, Carpenter's version was more faithful to the novella written by John Campbell in 1938. The 1951 version was literally poles apart from Carpenter's version, both in story and location.

At any rate, the detailed sculpt by Chris Elizardo of the Kurt Russel character, R.J. McReady, is dead on in its likeness to the actor. The 'Thing' spider head fragment is also true to the film however I didn't care for the base that much. I ended up making my own floor out of individual pieces of  'planking' with nail holes added for a little more detail. I also decide to add some wooden crates and tools to the clutter it up a bit more as was the case in the film. I left everything free standing so I could move stuff around if I liked. Just for this photo shoot, I used the background from the "Desparate Measures In A Nazi Lab" diorama which can be seen elsewhere on this site.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the build was the flamethrower apparatus mounted on McReady's back. Thankfully, the manufacturer included a nice blown up photocopy of what it should look like once it was assembled

There are several other 'scenes' you can add to the kit which are from the 2011 prequel which tells the story of what happened at the Norwegian outpost who were the unfortunate original discoverers of the Thing. The kit I built goes for $179.95 (a little steep if you ask me) and the others can be purchased as a group or individually for $99.95 or so depending on its complexity. These kits were also nicely sculpted by Chris Elizardo and are bubble free resin castings.