The Thing

“Nobody trusts anybody now, and we’re all very tired.” John Carpenter’s angry letter to the world and to film as a whole, The Thing drowns in freezing loneliness and frantic paranoia from the moment it begins to the very last frame. There is so much that can be, and has been, said about this scientific experiment on body horror and on man’s desperation to survive anything out in front of them that I feel like there’s nothing really new to be said. So I won’t try to. I’ll just say a lot of what has been already been said, in the way closest to my own thoughts that I can translate. The arctic setting here is extremely fitting because I don’t know if I can think of a more calculated, isolated and unsentimental horror film that I’ve seen. Given that they released a mere fourteen days (two weeks) apart from one another back in 1982, The Thing almost feels like Carpenter’s direct retaliation and opposition to E.T. The latter offers a far more optimistic outlook on the cosmos and the things beyond our understanding, presenting an alien that comes with empathy and a childlike innocence and the capability of love. This one goes the total opposite direction and tells you that the stars should be feared and that the creature we aren’t prepared to accept the existence of will be the death of us all. And it mows through the ensemble cast it’s stacked up against with relative ease. The Thing plays with a tone that is so wholly nihilistic, it even promises you that even if the alien gets destroyed, our heroes won’t make it alive. Extinction is the only outcome for all the players in this particular battle. By far some of the most ominous and chilling moments in this film happen earlier on (especially when you’re rewatching) when the dog has infiltrated the camp and is just slinking around and making its way through the halls, you look at this thing like it’s a snake in the grass. That’s the effective and simple horror of The Thing, though. Carpenter forces you to look at everyone and everything with a pulse with a doubtful glare. Fear and confusion bring out the worst in people, and that’s another message this film perfectly displays. These men quickly resort to betraying, trapping, accusing and killing one another once something comes along to challenge their safety. The aliens are monsters, but humans are creatures too. Kurt Russell gives one of his very best performances here as the isolated loner who doesn’t even sleep in the same compound as his colleagues, forced to step up and try and lead them out of a white hell. He says so much with his eyes and with Mac’s quiet, enigmatic body language and when he does speak, when he does get pushed to the edge, you realize he is not above committing horrible acts if it means to save his own skin. Ennio Morricone’s score is expertly crafted and a crucial part of why this movie works so flawlessly. As a matter of fact, the sound design and the musical score have to be showered with praise. The Thing is most famous (rightfully so) for its groundbreaking practical gore and monster effects, which continue to hold up four decades later. But beyond looking great and looking monsterous, it absolutely sounds fiendish and frightening and brings out the sheer isolation of this nightmare that our characters have been thrust into. The enemy you know is better than the enemy you don’t. With The Thing, John Carpenter seems to use that old phrase as the basis for the entire thing. And truly, he may have been into something. Because what happens when the enemy you don’t know also happens to be the face you see in the mirror? Truly insidious horror made in the most lavish way possible.