John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) - 88%
Masterfully gripping sci-fi thriller from the frequently brilliant John Carpenter. Completely isolated due to faulty radio equipment and a heavy winter, the U.S. Antarctica Research Program team come across a deadly creature from another planet. They have artillery, and they have man power. The only problem is that the creature they’re up against could be any one of them. It is a shape-shifter, and can assimilate any other life form to create a perfect copy. What ensues is an action packed, edge-of-the-seat exploration of paranoia and fear, which refuses to let up for a single moment.
Burdened with the twin objectives of their own survival, and ensuring that “the Thing” doesn’t reach civilisation, MacReady (Kurt Russell at his unshaven, booze-soaked best) and co. must devise ways by which to test the crew members’ authenticity so as to isolate the creature. Sabotage lays around every corner however, ever narrowing the options for the remaining humans. This is very much of the category of horrors which gets by on its engaging concept and lead role. It’s such a fantastic set-up and ripe for suspense, drama, action and gore.
Atmospherically shot, without feeling the need to simply shroud everything in almost complete darkness throughout (as with too many recent thriller/horrors), Carpenter achieves a very real sense of the bowel-constrictingly tense and the bowel-emptyingly gruesome with what are now fairly dated special effects. At the time it was somewhat criticised for its level of gore, but for me that seems entirely justified; set against the close quarters in which they find themselves, the brutality of the deaths in The Thing only acts to emphasise the mechanisms that make horror so great.
The Thing is an established classic, which only this year has prompted the making of a prequel. After having rewatched this original, I can fully endorse the idea (provided of course that it is done with something approaching panache): indeed, there are plenty of unanswered - possibly for good reason - questions dating back to before our heroes arrive on the scene.
All in all if you enjoyed Alien (etc.), then this may just be the film for you.
88%
