film: the thing
beer: harpoon UFO pumpkin ale
let's face it. aliens are friggin scary. if some life form that i've never seen before shows up on my doorstep, i'm freaking the fuck out & reaching for the closest vase to crack over its head. for today's pumpktoberfest film, we've got a 1982 john carpenter flick featuring an utterly horrific alien--the thing. it's sort of a remake of the 1952 howard hawks film the thing from another world, which was based on the 1938 john w. campbell novella who goes there? unfortunately for the producers, it didn't do extremely well at the box office, as it was released at the same time as another film featuring a decidedly more lovable alien--E.T. apparently people prefer cross-dressing, PG-rated aliens over the murderous, R-rated types.
the film stars kurt russell as r.j. macready, a helicopter pilot for a team of american researchers in the antarctic. the film opens with a quick scene of a UFO crashing towards earth & after the title, we see a sled dog running across the ice with a sniper-wielding norwegian helicopter in close pursuit. eventually, the dog makes it to the american research camp & the helicopter lands. two dudes hop out. one dude tries to throw an explosive at the dog but drops it, blowing up both himself & the helicopter. the other dude chases after the dog, firing at it with a rifle & accidentally shooting one of the american researchers. in retaliation, the american station commander shoots him dead. they're all like WTF? but since you can never have enough sled dogs, they take this one in & then a few dudes helicopter over to the norwegian camp to find out what's up with all the sniping.
too bad this ain't your average, everyday sled dog. it's actually an alien that's taken the form of a sled dog. of course, the american researchers have no way of knowing this but when they get to the norwegian camp, they discover that it's all burnt up & devoid of living norwegians. they also come across a hollowed-out ice crater & a f'd up looking corpse that they decide to bring back to their camp to analyze. that night, they leave the aforementioned alien sled dog in the kennel with the rest of the dogs & it transforms into a disgusting looking thing with tentacles that spray fluids all over the place, killing all the dogs. hearing the commotion, the researchers arrive to find the kennel in shambles & the alien going bucknutty. their response? they torch the creature & then analyze it, discovering that it has the ability to copy/merge with other life forms. this is bad news, as the sled dog has been in camp for a while & could've already taken over any of the members of the camp. extreme paranoia ensues.
while the film has its fair share of gore & horror, a lot of the tension comes from the researchers psychologically breaking down as they grow more & more suspicious of one another. it's pretty cool...almost as cool as kurt russell's flowing early-80's locks. for fans of the thing, today hollywood's releasing a prequel to the original that focuses on what happened in the norwegian camp when they first discovered & unleashed the thing. it stars the lovely mary elizabeth winstead (ramona flowers in scott pilgrim vs the world). personally, i'm glad they decided to focus on the norwegian part of the story instead of trying to remake the 1982 film. it's a horror classic & messing with that would've likely ended horribly.
in honor of (preferably non-killer) aliens all across the universe, today we've got the harpoon UFO pumpkin ale, a new pumpkin beer that boston's harpoon brewery introduced way the hell back in july. while i've grown sick of harpoon's regular brews over the years, i still enjoy the occasional UFO, their line of unfiltered wheat beers. the harpoon website suggests that when thinking of their new pumpkin creation, you "imagine a pumpkin vine wound its way in a field of barley, and a brewer harvested it all to make a beer." all in the same field?...how convenient for that lazy brewer. too bad he didn't stumble across a bunch of hops while he was out there.
their pumpkin ale's basically their typical unfiltered wheat beer brewed with pumpkin & spices. it's got a hazy, dark orange color to it & an aroma that's mostly about the pumpkin pie spices, which in this case are likely nutmeg, cinnamon & allspice. you can sort of taste the pumpkin in it but the spices are the dominant trait. as for the hop character, it's brewed with northwestern hops but other than a slight bitterness in the aftertaste, they're pretty much nonexistent. overall, it has a sort of sweet flavor that's about the same but a tad bit better than the shock top pumpkin. while it's not on the high end of the pumpkin beer spectrum, it's a quality brew...nothing OUT OF THIS WORLD but if you're into hefeweizens & pumpkin beers, you'll definitely enjoy it.