The Thing
by Cheeto
Posted on 30 April 2021
Rating -
The Thing is a 1982 American science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter and written by Bill Lancaster. Based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?, it tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica who encounter the eponymous “Thing”, a parasitic extraterrestrial life-form that assimilates, then imitates other organisms. The group is overcome by paranoia and conflict as they learn that they can no longer trust each other and that any one of them could be the Thing. The film stars Kurt Russell as the team’s helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady, and features A. Wilford Brimley, T. K. Carter, David Clennon, Keith David, Richard Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, and Thomas G. Waites in supporting roles.
It is a massive understatement to say that I am a huge John Carpenter fan. He’s called the master of horror for a reason. Just look at his resume, Halloween, Escape from New York (not a horror film), Christine, They Live; and so much more.
Although I think some of these films are the best of John Carpenter, there is one film that stands out, The Thing. Ok, I’m going to say it… The Thing is the greatest horror movie ever made and I will defend that statement til the day I die. Why is that I may hear you ask? Well let me explain.
The film stars Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady, along with a stacked cast mentioned above. The film is about an alien lifeform that can only be described as ‘The ‘Thing’; an alien lifeform that can transform into anything around it to be a perfect copy of the thing it’s copying. It does this by matching all of it’s cells to the thing that it’s copying. It then starts to pick off each member of the squad.
The setting is an American research base in Antartica. This setting makes the viewer feel isolated and helps to add to the already festering tension. Tension is the backbone of this film. It makes you feel uneasy and it puts you as far on the edge of your seat as possible.
As the film goes on and more people are picked off, the characters demeanours and personality’s begin to change as they begin to question who is ‘The Thing’. It’s this very paranoia that puts the viewer on the edge of the seat.
I don’t want to give too much away as you literally need to drop everything and go and see this film. This is why in my opinion, it is one of the best films ever made, and easily the best horror film ever made.
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