Depending on your opinion, probably the most criminally underrated horror film of 1982 (and one of the best of the decade) was John Carpenter’s THE THING. Gore mixed in with awesome acting, cool setting (figuratively and literally) and top it off with a mindf*ck of a story, and you have a hit on your hands. That is, unless your film was up against the other alien of 1982, E.T.
As most of you guys know (or maybe you don’t), Carpenter based the film off of the original film, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, which in turn was based off of the John W. Campbell short story ‘Who Goes There?’. The alien’s appearance in the short story was never really explained, which led to interpretations of the cheesy (THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD) to the downright gross (John Carpenter). At Toy Fair ’06, Dark Horse unveiled their interpretation of the alien (or more accurately, Pete Von Sholly’s) in the form of a 4.5″ tall, fully painted vinyl figure.
According to Dark Horse’s website, Pete’s talented wife, Andrea, sculpted and painted the model from his storyboards, so technically, wouldn’t that make the figure a joint effort? Ah well, the figure looks sweet, and so does the box it comes in, so what’s left to complain about? The figure is set for a March release with an asking price of $17.99. Head over to Dark Horse’s website via the link above to pre-order.