Review of The Thing (1982) by Tommy H — 31 Mar 2015

John Carpenter's Halloween and The Thing are like really good pop songs. Some of the best pop songs are original because they take complicated good music and simplify it down to the lowest denominator, producing something new and easily accessible.

Halloween basically borrowed story elements from overly complicated mystery movies and simplified them down to a handful of regular teenagers on a dark and deserted street, and there's just a guy killing people.

You can shut your brain off and get immersed in the atmosphere. The same can be said about The Thing. Before The Thing I've seen countless movies having to do with an alien, or a ghost, or something bad hiding in a human, but all those pre-The Thing movies always had an overly complicated mystery element to it, or just a lot going on besides: "who is the alien? Oh, it's you!" The End.

The Thing is the bare essentials of this sub-genre of science fiction, and taking the minimalist approach allowed Carpenter to really perfect the tired theme. The action, suspense, paranoia, and the feeling of isolation from the world is all great.

Every actor involved was memorable. The soundtrack really got your pulse pounding. And the special effects I would say are still ahead of its time even by 2015 standards.