The Thing Review: A Perfect Movie

The Thing is the master of sci-fi and horror at the top of his game. There’s a reason people still love this thing over forty years after its first release.

In my opinion, a perfect movie is one where I cannot think of any ways it could improve; it is the best possible version of itself that it could be, and it thoroughly succeeds at what it sets out to do. Or put more simply, movies like John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).

The Thing follows a crew of American researchers stationed in the Antarctic who come across the eponymous Thing. The Thing is an extraterrestrial creature that can perfectly and violently assimilate and imitate other living organisms, and begins picking off the crew one by one. As the creature’s body count begins to grow, so does the crew’s paranoia; they begin to distrust each other, isolate each other, and fight each other until no one, not even the audience, can be sure who is human, and who is just the Thing, lurking and waiting for its next victim.

It’s hard to know where to begin when talking about The Thing, but I’ll start with what may be its most famous element: its visuals. John Carpenter teamed up with the legendary sfx and makeup artist Stan Winston (who won Oscars for his work on Aliens, Jurassic Park, and the Terminator franchise) to create a unique blend of eldritch design and practical effects are some of the best work they’ve ever done. The creature’s amorphous shape is both horrifying and awe-inspiring; it is a mix of tendrils and an ever-changing blobby mass that never truly reveals all of its secrets that is not to be missed. Even outside of the creature, the practical effects are outstanding throughout.

The set is cramped, reflecting the researchers’ isolation, and it feels even smaller once the guns and flamethrowers come out. The lighting gives away just enough to showcase the terror and build atmosphere, while still allowing you to be able to see what’s going on. And while some of the visuals may be over-the-top, it never jumps the shark or spoils your immersion. Also, for all you fans of wet puppets out there, I can happily report that The Thing features many puppets, most of which are both extremely and satisfyingly wet.

All these exceptional visuals are all in service to, what I believe to be, easily Bill Lancaster’s best screenplay. It’s perfectly paced, dropping the viewer right in the middle of the action, wasting no time on any unnecessary exposition. Lancaster’s plot seamlessly goes from plot point to plot point without it ever feeling rushed; he knows exactly when to allow for space to breathe, and when to pick up the action again, just in time for a fright or a new exciting plot development. And despite us not getting much time to get to know the men in the base, they are still compelling characters, all showing different and varied ways people may respond to an emergency beyond their comprehension.

Speaking of characters, the cast is uniformly outstanding: the actors’ performances are what truly make the characters compelling, and they give each member of the crew such succinct and unique personalities that you can’t help but get invested in their respective efforts at survival. The cast is led by Kurt Russell as RJ MacReady, the team’s helicopter pilot, basically being a slightly toned down version of Snake, his character from Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981), but it fits seamlessly into the film, so I’ll give it a pass.

In his first credited film role, Keith David shines as Childs, the crew’s chief mechanic, giving an early glimpse of the talent that would grace film, television, and video game screens for decades to come. Other standout performances include Wilford Brimley as the gruff Blair, the senior biologist, David Clennon as the stoner Palmer, the assistant mechanic, and Richard Dysart as Dr. Cooper, the physician just trying to do the right thing. Despite the fact I’m singling out individual excellent performances, I would like, however, to iterate once again that the entire cast is outstanding, and there is not a single weak performance.

In my eyes, The Thing is as perfect as a movie can get: it knows exactly what it wants to be and what it’s trying to do, and succeeds on every level I can conceive. Its visuals were bold, striking, and innovative for its time, and even considering the limits of technology when it was made, it still holds up against the barrage of bland cgi worlds we get now. Its screenplay is full of suspenseful tension and frights mixed with the perfect amount of humanity, and the cast delivers the story beautifully. I might even go so far as to say that The Thing is John Carpenter’s best film; it is a master of sci-fi and horror at the top of his game, combining two of my favorite genres into a masterpiece. There’s a reason people still love this thing over forty years after its first release.

The Thing is now available to watch on digital and on demand, and on DVD & Blu-Ray.

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