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[–] ArsCortica [S] ago 

I already thought of this, but the body snatchers do not actually take control of the body of their victims, do they?

Has been a while since I last saw the original movie, but IIRC they only copy the victim's body when they sleep and then kill them.

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[–] SkepticalMartian ago  (edited ago)

Ridley Scott's Alien doesn't really take control over the victim's body either, save for keeping the victim sedated during the impregnation process. The person still has full control over their faculties until the egg hatches and the baby alien does what it does best.

Come to think of it, the thing doesn't take over bodies either. It mimics its victims.

All the same, The Thing is pretty rad and should be watched regardless of the criteria laid out. Carpenter's 1982 "the thing" is a remake of another film called "The Thing From Another World" which was released in 1951. It was remade again (technically it's a prequil, but the plots are so similar it may as well be a remake) in 2011 by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. - a relatively unknown director. Both succeed in their mission of being great survival horror movies.

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[–] ArsCortica [S] ago 

Without going into too much detail, my Idea regarding Alien is that you basically have two "bodies" - the regular, human body, which the Alien corrupts and destroy via the classical chestburster, and then the ship as a second/body shell - the ship normally protects the humans from the vacuum and cold of deep space, but the Alien turns the entire thing around by hiding in its many corridors and gutting the crew one by one.

I also considered the thing - in this case, the body that is corrupted and destroyed by the Alien still could be argued to be a biological one (given that the Alien still uses human bio-matter to create its puppets), as well as the human society proper, as it sows distrust amongst the human survivors - each of them sees the others as a potential Thing.