Friday night in Durham, the Carolina Theatre’s Retrofantasm series explores the “Assimilation of the Remake” with two remakes of ’50s sci-fi flicks, which have since been remade themselves: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982) and Phillip Kaufman’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978). “The Thing” was Carpenter’s second film with Kurt Russell, who stars as a helicopter pilot who fights a shape-shifting alien along with a group of scientists at an Antarctic research station, while “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” features Donald Sutherland as a San Francisco health inspector who discovers that human beings are being replaced by aliens. The double bill, which proves that not all remakes are inferior to the originals, begins at 7. Admission is $8 ($6.25 for Star members). Details: 919-560-3030; www.festivals.carolinatheatre.org/retrofantasma.