The Thing (1982)

Directed by John Carpenter

10/10

The Thing is my favorite movie of all time, hands down. A fascinating plot, incredible effects, and best of all, Kurt Russell at his sexiest as MacReady. The bleakness of the Antartic wasteland is the perfect blank canvas for some of the best framing and lighting in cinema, in my opinion. While some parts of the film drag, I enjoy that it helps build the tension and feels alien to the fast and snappy editing of the 2020s.

The movie follows a research team located in Antartica, who discover a shapeshifting alien lifeform hellbent on assimilating them. They realize that when the Thing becomes them, it perfectly copies their DNA so it is identical to the original organism, which fosters an air of paranoia throughout the team since it could be any one of them. If the retrieval team picks the Thing up with the rest of the crew when its time to leave, the crew is certain it will continue killing and assimilating people. To protect the rest of the world, the crew must work together to eliminate the Thing.

Initially, the film was a bit of a flop. People were disgusted with the monster design and bored by the characters. It didn’t help that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) was released around the same time and was the much more popular alien movie. However, The Thing became a cult classic when it hit home video and television.

I adore the paranoia the film builds and the terror surrounding who is actually who. I find myself, on every watch through, trying to find little tip-offs to see if I can figure out who the Thing is first. It never works, of course, but analyzing the characters’ body language is fun in and of itself, seeing all the minute micro expressions and tense jaw clenches really hammers in the fearful anticipation.

The design of the Thing is still utterly stunning to me over 40 years after the film’s debut. It’s goopy, it’s wet, and it’s repulsively impressive! Around 10% of the film’s $15 million budget was allocated to the Thing itself, created by Rob Bottin. Bottin is known for his creature effects in The Howling (1981), The Fog (1980), and RoboCop (1987). I can only imagine the challenge bringing a gory shapeshifter to life, but Mike Ploog, the concept artist for the film, achieved it with flying colors, from the sprinkler dog to the head spider. One of my favorite production tidbits was the concept art for the Thing in its many forms.

What I think is one of the most effective types of horror building is when the monster is used sparingly. Alien (1979) is a great example of this. The Xenomorph is present on the ship and in scenes after the crew reboards the ship, but because the audience doesn’t know what it looks like, they aren’t able to recognize it as a danger yet. But as they keep watching, they take the tiny bits and pieces they’ve seen of the monster and begin building what they think the monster looks like in their heads. It may or may not be accurate, but the mystery will keep viewers on their toes, fearing what may or may not be in the dark.

The Thing goes through several different forms throughout the movie; first it’s a dog, then a weird tuby monster, then a human, then just a head, then blood, then human again. Techinally the Thing is almost always on screen; we just don’t know which character it is, and every time we figure it out, it changes into something different! Essentially, there are multiple monsters in the movie that only appear once, which resets the fear factor each time. And I LOVE that! I feel that compared to more modern movies, where the monster is near omnipresent, this gives the monster more of a scary, outmatched aura. It’s difficult to know how to kill something when you’ve barely seen it, and it makes it that much scarier when you actually see it for the first time.

The Thing inhabits a similar fear of the Red Scare, specifically the Second Red Scare following World War 2. Much of the plot revolves around people pointing fingers, insisting that, actually, THAT guy is the Thing, not me! Don’t shoot me! This calls back to McCarthyism, coined such because senator Joseph McCarthy began accusing Americans of being Soviet spies. While this did weed out many legitimate spies and ultimately exposed the Soviet spy network in the US, many people were fingered simply because someone disliked them and wanted them arrested or blacklisted.

The crew gets along fairly well, although it’s easy to tell there is tension building between different members, most notably Childs and MacReady, as their crew is whittled down. The two butt heads throughout the film, constantly battling for control of the crew and situation. They accuse each other directly of being the Thing, not-so-subtly threatening to kill the other. I feel this lends itself to the fear of McCarthyism, as Childs challenges MacReady’s group-appointed leadership, and MacReady being the Thing would be awfully convenient for Childs. With MacReady out of the way, Childs would be able to handle the crew as he pleased.

I feel should note that I don’t believe Childs had bad intentions for the crew. Despite everything I love about this film, it was still made in the 80s where people were…less progressive overall than they are today. And I don’t feel it was an accident that one of only two black men in this movie is aggressive, angry, and trying to overthrow our white protagonist. If I may do my own reading into the film (and this is my website, so you have to let me), I feel that Childs was as afraid as everyone else, and the only thing he wanted was perceived control over the situation. Surely, if he’s in charge, he can fix all of this, right? If everyone listens to him, he can get them out of here alive.

Which makes it all the more poignant at the end of the film, with the base destroyed, almost all of the crew dead, when MacReady and Childs find each other and are still suspicious. At the end of it all, they still can’t bring themselves to trust or work together. The two men are cagey about their missing time with neither willing to give any ground. So they both decide that with no heating, no crew, and no hope, to put aside their mistrust for a moment, and share a drink while they freeze to death.

The Thing is a juggernaut film to me. It works to pull themes of distrust and the constant pressure of an enemy who could be any one of us into a terrifying simulation of post WW2 McCarthyism in isolation. At the same time, it experimented with how to make a monster, with some of the coolest and yuckiest practical effects that still hold up today. Giving it 10 stars is a bit generous on my part, as the movie definitely is not perfect, but I think that a compelling movie with a few imperfections is worth a dozen boring perfect movies.