The Thing

“First goddamn week of winter.” Paranoid nihilism as horror cinema. John Carpenter’s highest artistic achievement in a career full of genre classics. Foreboding and daunting from the moment it begins to its closing few seconds. In the theater, that Ennio Morricone score is like a pulse with all the blood rushing to your head, serves as this ambient backdrop to all of the horrors you see unfold before your eyes. And, boy, does that horror look as fucking awesome as ever. I genuinely believe the practical effects found in The Thing remain the finest ever put to film. If that’s perhaps a little too bold, then I’d definitely proclaim it for the best within the horror genre. Rob Bottin’s designs remain as twisted and wicked and grisly as they have ever been, bringing this entity of evil to vivid and disgusting life. Even in spite of its dark sense of humor (which does provide some genuinely laugh out loud moments), Carpenter never really compromises the completely doomed tone that he establishes; the struggle against this alien creature feels rather hopeless from the moment the crew becomes aware of it. Exemplified perfectly with the greatest role of Kurt Russell’s career in R.J. MacReady, a quiet and stoic loner who doesn’t even sleep in the same quarters as his colleagues and seems to generally regard the topic of his own demise with a rather blunt level of apathy. Those final moments out in the dark, as the inferno rages (shot beautifully by the genius himself that is Dean Cundey), where all he can do is sit back and halfheartedly chuckle caps off everything the film sets out to say. Did their struggle matter? Did their violent deaths mean anything? Did they stop the evil that fell into their laps? We don’t know. That’s a scary question with no answer in sight. And it’s being asked by what could very well be the greatest American horror film ever put to the screen.