Review of The Thing (1982) by James S — 03 Jan 2015

Starring: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, and Donald Moffat.

Directed By: John Carpenter.

Written By: Bill Lancaster.

Rated: R.

Remake of The Thing From Another World (1951). A team of scientists in Antarctica discover their group has been infiltrated by an alien that has been sleeping in the ice for thousands of years. It can successfully consume and copy any living thing, including them. Now anyone of them could be...The Thing!

It's Halloween, so that means it's that time of year where you break out the horror movies and enjoy a good scare. My go to ones tend to be 1408, Scream, and of course, John Carpenter's The Thing. You just can't beat the paranoia atmosphere and mystery of who is human, and who isn't. It's so wonderfully claustrophobic that The X-Files paid homage to it once. I watch it almost every Halloween, so you've probably guessed, I love it. Why? Lets find out.

For one thing we have 80s era Kurt Russell and there are few dudes who were cooler (heck, did you see Death Proof? He's still pretty cool) and can still pull off that large, silly hat MacReady wears. He's a bit of an anti-hero, but is far from unlikable so you quickly have someone to rally behind.

Besides Kurt Russell we do get a stellar ensemble cast with likes of the excellent Wilford Brimley (he did do more than just "Diabeetus" commercials you know), the intimidating Keith David, Donald Moffat, and more. With a cast this small, everyone has to pull their weight, because one weak performance can seriously hurt the film. However, everyone does a fantastic job and there are no weak links in the chain. You quickly buy that they've all been living together in a small space for months and that's in part to the great script and performances.

The special effects have held up amazingly well, considering how old this now is.

Well most of them.

The wide shots of some of the landscapes aren't as great as they used to be, but just about everything involving The Thing is fantastic animatronics work done by Rob Bottin (and some by Stan Winston). The only problem scene is one between Palmer and Windows where one is clearly a dummy being used. Otherwise, all the work is great.

John Carpenter does a fantastic job of capturing the claustrophobia of the science team. Trapped in the middle of storm at their station, with nowhere to go, while something is killing them off. You get the real sense of panic and paranoia as we find out who is human and who no longer is.

Is this the best of all the great 80s horror movies? I can't say that. There are still quite a few I haven't seen, but not many of them have made it to this long without being overly dated, cheesy, or have just become laughable.

If you need a good suspense film to watch this Halloween evening, turn down the heat, bundle up in a parka, and turn on The Thing.

10 Reels Out of 10.

"I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It'll fight if it has to, but it's vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won.".