DVD: September 1998 Archives

In his cultural history of the horror genre, The Monster Show, writer David J. Skal compares Francis Bacon's famous 1944 triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion to equally disturbing special effects work in John Carpenter's The Thing. The surrealistic imagery conjured by Rob Bottin to depict the transformation of a human being into a shape-changing thing from another world is nearly unimaginable, and Bacon is one of its few precedents. It must be seen to be believed, and it represents a kind of high-water mark for fevered creativity in the horror film. [Ed. note, 2008: This review references a DVD edition of the film that hasn't been available for years. Current editions represent a significant improvement in picture quality.]