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John Carpenter's The Thing scared the bejeesus out of moviegoers 30 years ago today, and we've got a vintage 1982 interview with the film's star, Kurt Russell, who called the creature "unbelievably bizarre."

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"I think that what we're going to try to do, hopefully, is make the all-time great monster movie," Kurt told ET. "There's never been any monster close to this one. It's unbelievably bizarre."

Reuniting with director John Carpenter for the third time following Escape from New York and the TV movie Elvis, Russell explained that he wanted to try his hand at a "monster movie."

"I had a fun time reading the script and it was much better, much more interesting, than I assumed it was going to be," he said. "There was an element of paranoia that I thought would be fun to play and fun to see in the movie."

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He added, "The Thing is … the most expensive production that I've been in. I think it's probably the best movie I've been in."