The Thing from Another World

Warning: Contains spoilers - however, it's a thirty-five year old movie, so you've got no excuse if you haven't seen it yet :)

Toppling towards Earth,

the place of our birth,

is something burning bright like a furnace.

It’s an alien vessel,

which at a rough guess will

plummet out of control to the surface.

There are few places parkier

than the depths of Antarctica,

where the landscape is nothing but snow.

But then something of note, a

loud helicopter rotor

of a chopper that’s hovering low.

They’re in hot pursuit

of a stray Malamute

but keep failing to hit with their gun.

The Norwegians are frustrated

and get quite agitated when

it reaches Outpost thirty-one.

The chopper lands on a verge as

the gunner emerges

and pulls out a grenade which he’d stowed.

The throw’s fucked up a treat

and it lands at his feet

and the pilot and chopper explode.

With reckless abandon

He keeps shooting at random,

gibbering, clearly off his head.

As stray bullets fly by,

Bennings is caught in the thigh,

and Garry shoots the Norwegian stone dead.

MacReady and Doc. Copper

head off in their chopper

and find that the Norwegian base is

just a charred shell that’s filled

with dead bodies, as well

as a humanoid corpse with two faces.

They bring it from there

for their biologist, Blair.

“This thing isn’t human,” he proposes.

and meanwhile the mutt

confirms somethings afoot,

as the bloody thing metamorphoses.

Whilst their dogs buy the farm,

MacReady pulls the alarm

and Childs turns the dogs into toast

Blair checks out the corpse

“This is alien, of course,

and can perfectly mimic its host”.

“It’s from an alien race

come from deep outer space

and we can’t let it get out of here.

If it reaches civilization,

It’ll mean all our damnation.

Earth’ll be assimilated in just a few years.”

Bennings dies by cremation,

caught mid-transformation,

and they’re forced to lock Blair in the shed.

With an axe he went crazy, Oh,

and chopped up the radio

and killed all the sled dogs stone dead.

Copper says “With our blood,

a simple test should

reveal the alien now rather than later.”

But the blood stores are trashed,

al the samples left smashed.

It’s clear now that there is a traitor.

The biologist Fuchs

says that he’ll take a look,

and that he’ll continue Blair’s studies.

But later that night

of him there’s no sight

so venture outside, do his buddies.

They find Fuch’s corpse burnt black,

and so Windows heads back

in order to go raise the alert.

Nauls too, is deflated

fearing his friend assimilated

when he finds a scrap of MacReady’s torn shirt.

As the team congregate

to debate MacReady’s fate,

he appears with explosives, quite stressed.

“I’ll blow you to bits,

If you attack me, you shits.”

(Norris suffers a cardiac arrest).

Without hesitation, they try

defibrillation

The outcome for Norris looks bleak

but to their disbelief

his stomach sprouts teeth

and teaches Copper a hands-off technique.

The mutated fellow

is toasted like a marshmallow

although one you wouldn’t dare digest

“Windows, gather everyone round

and tie them all down.

We’re going to try out a test.”

Clark, who fears for his life,

goes for him with a knife,

and MacReady just shoots the man dead.

They’re all stunned into silence

by this act of violence

having seen their friend shot in the head.

“Guys” said MacReady,

“I think I’ve got a theory.

The alien just wants to survive.

if we can just determine,

who’s a host to this vermin,

then we might just stay alive.”

Everyone tied and seated,

a copper wire’s heated

and placed into samples of blood.

But when the wire tip was probin’

Palmer’s Haemoglobin

it leapt off as far as it could.

With little advance warning,

Palmer’s now transforming

as tentacles sprout from his head

Windows hesitates to flame him,

and death comes to claim him

and MacReady has to burn them both dead.

Garry’s been through the wringer,

He feels loathe to linger, so

it’s only fair that he seems a grouch.

“You’ve been through a lot,

but I would rather not

spend Winter tied to this fucking couch”

With Childs left to guard,

the others head to the yard

in order to go and test Blair.

They open his shed

and find they’ve all been misled.

The alien has tunnelled out of there.

Though they thought him Mammalian,

turns out Blair is an alien

and the blighter’s given them the slip

He’s been scavenging equipment

which is for his ship meant,

and has part-built a makeshift space ship.

Garry looks all forlorn.

“The Generator’s gone”

“Is there any way we can fix it?”,

MacReady asks with a frown.

Garry stares at the ground,

“No, I meant as in somebodies nicked it”

“Oh, bugger, shit and damn,

I know the things plan.”

MacReady states, with some consternation.

“We’ll all freeze to death,

and we’ll breathe our last breath –

it’ll be safe whilst it’s in hibernation”

The most hopeful prognosis

was to lay the explosives

agreed the remaining three guys

The dynamite was placed

(and Blair melts Garry’s face)

but then came the biggest surprise.

A vast tentacled Blair

bursts out into the air

popping open like some vile haemorrhoid

But with some dynamite (the last),

MacReady triggers the blast

And the base and the beast are destroyed.

As the flames all burn higher,

MacReady sits by the fire

as Childs reappears with a wry smile.

They can do nothing but watch

as they both share some Scotch.

“Why don’t we both just wait here a while.”