Review of The Thing (1982) by David C — 04 Jul 2016
91/100, or an A rating.
Doesn't it feel like The Thing and Alien are in some sort of eternal competition between each other, mostly by virtue of both being alien-focused variations on the old kill-'em one by one in an inclosed space horror formula, with the added bonus of featuring those aliens burst out of a fellow's chest? Most folks probably go for Alien when deciding between the two, by virtue of it being an earlier film. The problem is, Alien is scary in only starts and stops due to an adherence to that formula's structure, while The Thing's spin feels startlingly uncertain, resulting in unremitting terror.
Turns out, the way to make a horror film feel like it has human conflict is to make every darn person the monster. It's the old Monsters are Due on Maple Street trick, in which the confusion over who's the alien is a terrific story driver- could be Kurt Russell, could be Keith David, could be the dog (my God, that dog is scary!).
The only place this film suffers in comparison to old Alien is that gorgeous, quiet moments like Harry Dean Stanton drinking some dribbling water while searching for his cat kind of fall at the wayside, even if Alien has just about as many character-driven scenes as The Thing. Anyhow, The Thing has Kurt Russell punching a computer over an electronic chess game, so I can accept the trade-off.
This review of The Thing (1982) was written by David C on 04 Jul 2016.
The Thing has generally received very positive reviews.
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