Review of The Thing (1982) by Mark H — 21 Aug 2015

A tense, atmospheric film that works best as a mystery, and worst as gory horror movie. Rob Bottin's legendary effects are excessive, and take away from an otherwise first-rate thriller. Close your eyes during the 4 or 5 gruesome scenes and reserve your attention for the rest of the film which deserves it.

Just as he did in Halloween, John Carpenter succeeds here with a relentless sense of dread, a terrific ominous score, and a nice build-up. However, where he exercised restraint in Halloween with the graphic violence, he failed to do so here.

Armed (burdened?) with his first big budget - $15 million, I think he felt an obligation to make the movie bigger, grosser, and more violent. It wasn't necessary. Never forget, what the audience DOESN't see is often as scary or more scary than what they DO see.

And, it costs much, much less to imply rather than show. Rob Bottin did a commendable job creating several gross, slimy and sometimes scary monsters, but less would have been more here. Still a great mystery/thriller/monster movie.

Sadly, this film seemed to derail John Carpenter's career, as he was never really trusted with a real budget again or a major studio release. Always better as a low-budget movie maker, he would return with some success a year later with Steven King's Christine, followed by Starman and Big Trouble in Little China.

By 1988, just 10 years after Halloween launched his career into legend territory, he was reduced to making "They Live," the last semi-interesting horror/comedy movie he made. A few forgettable horror movies later and that's basically it for the last 25+ years.

The Thing really was the beginning of the end for Carpenter, as the release date doomed the film to failure (it was released within a couple weeks of both ET and Poltergeist. Both films performed much better than The Thing and were more family oriented, reached a much broader audience, and made alot more money and were both critical hits.

Had the studio waited just 3 months until October, 1982 and released it as a Halloween weekend movie or at a time when competition was week, The Thing might have done much better and Carpenter's career may have been much different.

Instead, it made about 3 million more than it cost, which means after marketing and distribution costs, it lost alot of money. That money was recouped on VHS, TV and DVD later, but the damage was done.

Still, a terrific, gross-out monster movie with a fun story and mystery at its core.