The Thing, the film that still remains the ultimate in alien terror

John Carpenter’s 1982 science-fiction/horror movie The Thing is one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It is a film that manages to be a sophisticated psychological thriller while at the same time a no holds barred monster movie. While the movie is considered a remake of the classic 1951 Howard Hawks movie The Thing From Another World, it tends to take more of it’s plot elements from the John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There? such as the alien imitating other life forms.

The film takes place in Antarctica where an American research team are working when they come across 2 Norwegians chasing a sled dog via helicopter. The men are killed with one dying after crashing the helicopter while the remaining man flees and is shot in self-defence believed by the men to be crazy. After investigating the Norwegian’s base where they find charred ruins and frozen corpses as well as a the remains of a burned malformed humanoid which is brought back to their base. Meanwhile the recovered sled dog starts attacking suspicious. When the other dogs start to get riled up and barking frantically causing it to horrifically transform into a hideous beast and attack the other dogs. After extensive research, Blair the scientist of the group comes to realize the creature is not trying to kill them, it is trying to become them. It is an alien life form that can perfectly imitate any other living organism. This starts to raise the question who is human and who is not.

1982 was a great year for movies with titles such as Blade Runner, Poltergeist, First Blood, Star Trek 2, The Dark Crystal and of course the big one of that year E.T. The Extra-terrestrial. Sadly The Thing was completely trashed upon it’s release mainly for it’s nihilistic tone and the fact that it came out around the same time as E.T. certainly didn’t help as the latter presented a more optimistic view of extra-terrestrial life. The Thing however is at it’s core a cleverly crafted thriller with wonderful direction from Carpenter, a tight screenplay from Bill Lancaster incredible cinematography from frequent Carpenter collaborator Dean Cundy and of course who can forget Ennio morricone’s outstanding and ominous score. On top of that the entire cast is very strong. However though it’s another Carpenter regular who stands out, Kurt Russell who as always who brings his usual bravado charm to everything he’s in.

Then of course there are the ground breaking special effects by the legendary Rob Bottin which for my money are still the finest use of practical effects put to film. Bottin worked on the effects everyday for over a year and was actually hospitalised due to exhaustion when filming wrapped (talk about suffering for your art). however when you see the finished product it’s completely worth it.

I think The Thing’s biggest strength is it doesn’t simply attack it’s victims just for the sake of it like in most monster movies. It only does so when it feels threatened. It also slyly turns characters against each other. This is evident after it is revealed a pair of shredded long johns are found with Mccready’s (Kurt Russell) name tag on it, as it is revealed that the creature tears through clothes when imitating. This shows that the creature is a highly intelligent manipulator that is more focused on making it’s victims attack each other instead. I think this is a problem that the 2011 prequel suffered from. The creature was just a mindless killing machine instead of a psychological menace. Also the CGI effects just weren’t that scary.

The Thing has truly earned it’s cult status over the years as a classic. I went to see a revival screening of the film a few years back with a friend and when the film ended some people in the audience were applauding. If only it got that kind of attention when it first came out. Either way it truly is a benchmark in horror cinema and John Carpenter at his very finest.