In Who Goes There?, the Thing is discovered by a team of Antarctic scientists frozen in its spaceship, which had crashed on Earth 20,000,000 years before.

Assistant commander McReady (known as R.J. MacReady in the 1982 film) takes over the crew and determines that all the animals at the station, except for the dog used for the blood test, have become imitations.

After McReady destroys the Thing with a blowtorch, it is revealed that it had almost completed building a nuclear-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world.

James Arness portrays the Thing, which in this version is a humanoid plant-based organism that feeds on animal blood.

In 1982's The Thing by John Carpenter, $200,000 of the budget were originally dedicated to creature effects, which at the time was more than Universal Pictures had ever allocated to a monster film.

[5] Similarly, in the 1982 film, the Thing sows distrust among the crew members, representing anti-communist paranoia and the Red Scares.

[8] Although The Thing from Another World was originally received unfavorably by critics,[9] it would later be considered one of the greatest science fiction films of the 1950s.

[12] Like its predecessor, John Carpenter's The Thing was originally met with negative reception, being called "foolish, depressing", and "instant junk" by critics.

[14][15] In spite of its original negative criticism, the film has made significant contributions to popular culture,[16] and has become a cult classic.