The Thing

An alien entity that can take any living form invades an isolated scientific research station in the Antarctic. John Carpenter's "The Thing "is best known for some of the most startling visual effects - surreal, lurid, shocking perversions of the human body - ever committed to celluloid. At London's National Film Theatre in 1995, Quentin Tarantino named "The Thing" as one of his favorite films. Yet when it was released in 1982, it fared badly against another alien encounter movie, "E.T.," and cr…