Brew Views: The Thing

Silly putty.

By AARON MESH

Everybody's bustin' on my Beer and Movie Fest, so why not allow Vincent Canby to join in the fun? He said John Carpenter's The Thing "aspired to be the quintessential moron movie of the '80s." Who dares argue? The Thing, which opens BAM's spring Laurelhurst engagement, isn't the rocket scientist of sci-fi pictures. Its suspense boils down to an Antarctic dorm game of "Mafia," and its creature effects suggest Carpenter wished Alien had looked more like Little Shop of Horrors. But who goes to the movies to think? We go to feel, and if you don't sense how Cronenberg and a generation of J-horror savants let The Thing's elastic mutations split their heads, you're a moron.

  1. Showing at: Laurelhurst Theater.
  2. Best paired with: New Belgium Clutch Dark Sour Ale.
  3. Also showing: The Muppets (Academy, Bagdad, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Mission). 

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