The Thing

**Man is the warmest place to hide ** This film is an absolutely tense experience with the grotesque effect work of a young Rob Bottin, who in my opinion makes this movie the masterpiece it is. On top of this masterpiece of practical effects, actors like Kurt Russel and Keith David beautifully morph into their characters states of fear, suspicion, and paranoia. Every relationship is rocky and unmaintained, these men are truly isolated and are already going mad before The Thing even enters their base. For a good minute in the beginning, all the men experience is fear for this alien thing they watch dead on a table then transform in front of their eyes like nothing they have ever seen before. Eventually the discovery is made that at this point, ANYONE could be The Thing. From here you see a great shift in how these characters act. People or going for weapons, pointing fingers, looking for any sign, any abnormality, all while The Thing is moving against them, covering its tracks, delaying tests, taking over more people. The Thing sees these guys flaws and uses it against them, even accusing some people while pretending to be one of their victims. The Thing knows who are the biggest threats and is quick to put them against each other. The Thing is additionally terrifying when considering it has assimilated a number of alien species, which it transforms to in the various scenes with big special effect moments. Bottin does an incredible job of imagining what these lifeforms would have looked like and perfectly merges those ideas with humans and dogs to add some familiarity in the mess of gore. The lighting in this is gorgeous as well making the outside seem so much more colder with the bright blue lights, and the flares used throughout the film clash with the blue so beautifully. Who is a human and who is The Thing is the major question of a big chunk of this movie and I really loved one specific character death because of it. One character commits suicide and this is the ultimate show of humanity, he would rather burn himself alive then be assimilated and taken over. That is human, that will to not have your consciousness taken. One line I love every time MacReady says it, “I know I’m human“. He says it with such confidence and such authority, the men have no choice to believe him because no one else (besides Chiles) wants to lead through this, they just trust MacReady cuz MacReady is the man!! This moment also puts his head on The Thing’s crosshairs as he is the biggest threat, a lone wolf veteran who’s been through hell once and will fight through it again if he needs to, he is the antithesis to The Things hivemind.  Side note, got to see this in theaters!! Best 9/11 ever!!!!!!