This might be a perfect diversion if you’re a parent overseeing a party of tweens on Halloween. It’s a multimedia adaptation of John Carpenter’s The Thing for a flip book with an accompanying audio rendition of the narrative that uses the novella on which the movie was based and also smartly uses audio cues from the movie. If you can imagine a radio version of the movie, with visual accompaniment, it’s pretty much that, and you can enjoy it all in less than 25 minutes.

Called The Thing Read-Along Record Book, the project was the 2014 creation of the Space Monkey X Audio Workshop. I’m not sure what that is, but I do know that it’s overseen by someone named Rob Lammle, so at least I can give proper credit.
 

 
Lammle was inspired by the record books of the 1980s, such as this one of Raiders of the Lost Ark:
 

When I was a kid, they made record books of everything I loved – the Star Wars trilogy, Gremlins, Batman and Robin, Spider-Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and even The Last Starfighter! But now that I’m an adult, I look at that time period (circa 1975-1989) and think, “Man, there are some really classic films that didn’t get the record book treatment!” Then again, back in the day, movies like Nightmare on Elm Street, Total Recall, and Robocop were R-rated bloodfests made for adults, instead of the neutered, PG-13, slapfights made for middle schoolers that we know today.

The text comes from “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr., the novella that supplied Carpenter with the plot for the movie. (By the way, if you have the “library binding” hardback tucked away on your shelf, it may be worth more than a thousand dollars.)

Inspired by this notion, I decided to start creating my own condensed, audio versions of these too-hot-for-record-book films. And I could think of no better movie to start with than John Carpenter’s 1982 cult classic The Thing.

 
More after the jump…

 
T-shirt design company Mondo has announced a product it will be releasing for Halloween, and it’s a reeeeeal good one: a board game version of John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing, in which Kurt Russell does battle with a shape-shifting alien lifeform that is causing havoc at an Antarctic research station.

The full name of the game is The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31. The game is a collaboration between Mondo and USAopoly’s games division Project Raygun. In a cute touch, the Mondo “exclusive version” will be limited to 1,982 copies in honor of the year the movie was released.
 

 
Players can choose one of a dozen characters from the movie, and there is surely a social detection component to the game, in which players must “gather gear, battle The Thing, expose any imitations ..., and escape Outpost 31.”

This is actually not the first board game based on The Thing. In 2011 Mark Chaplin released a self-published game that also used the movie’s plot as an inspiration for gameplay.
 

 
Only thing I don’t get is, what part of the game do you say, “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding”?
 

 
via Nerdcore
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’: Storyboard vs. finished film

 
John Carpenter’s The Thing runs riot on day-time game show Countdown. Bloody hell. An animation from Peeophole Circus. Awesome.
 

 
Via b3ta
 

 
“Possibly the best thing we have seen over the entire festive period…” says John Robb over at Louder Than War, and who could disagree? Animator Lee Hardcastle retells John Carpenter’s The Thing in 60 seconds, using claymation and children’s TV favorite Pingu. Sheer bloody magic.
 

 
Director’s Cut: ‘Pingu’s The Thing’, after the jump…
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Via Louder Than War
 

 
As you can imagine, they’re not exactly thrilled.

 
(via Nerdcore)