In John Carpenter’s 1982 horror film The Thing, the American Antarctic research station is called Outpost 31.
The isolated station is home to a small American research team whose members encounter a shape-shifting extraterrestrial organism. The facility’s remote location is central to the film’s suspense: the characters cannot easily leave, and outside help is unavailable during the Antarctic winter.
The story begins after an apparently desperate Norwegian pursuit of a sled dog. The dog reaches the American base before the researchers discover that the Norwegian team has been destroyed and that the creature can imitate living beings. The station’s enclosed rooms, laboratories, storage areas, and kennel become important locations as suspicion spreads among the crew.
Outpost 31 is sometimes confused with the Norwegian camp shown earlier in the film. That camp is a separate research station and is already devastated when the American team investigates it. The American base is also associated with helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady, played by Kurt Russell, and biologist Blair, played by A. Wilford Brimley.