The Thing Is A Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (24 October 2012)

John Carpenter's The Thing is both a remake of Howard Hawks' 1951 film of the same name and a re-adaptation of the John W. Campbell Jr. story "Who Goes There?" on which it was based. This science fiction horror film is directed by John Carpenter and written by Bill Lancaster.It features Kurt Russell together with Wilford Brimley,Keith David,Donald Moffat and Charles Hallahan. The title refers to its primary antagonist: a parasitic extraterrestrial lifeforms that assimilates other organisms and in turn imitates them.It infiltrates an Antarctic research station, taking the appearance of the researchers that it absorbs, and paranoia occurs within the group.Carpenter's film is more faithful to Campbell's story than Hawks' version and also substantially more reliant on special effects, provided in abundance by a team of over 40 technicians, including veteran creature-effects artists Rob Bottin and Stan Winston.
The screenplay opens enigmatically with a Siberian Husky running through the Antarctic tundra, chased by two men in a helicopter firing at it from above. Even after the dog finds shelter at an American research outpost, the men in the helicopter land and keep shooting. One of the Norwegians drops a grenade and blows himself and the helicopter to pieces; the other is shot dead in the snow by Garry, the American outpost captain. American helicopter pilot MacReady and camp doctor Copper fly off to find the Norwegian base and discover some pretty strange goings-on. The base is in ruins, and the only occupants are a man frozen to a chair and the burned remains of what could be one man or several men. In a side room, Copper and MacReady find a coffin-like block of ice from which something has been recently cut. That night at the American base, the Husky changes into the Thing, and the Americans learn first-hand that the creature has the ability to mutate into anything it kills. For the rest of the film the men fight a losing battle against it, never knowing if one of their own dwindling number is the Thing in disguise.
The Thing is a peerless masterpiece of relentless suspense, retina- wrecking visual excess and outright, nihilistic terror.This is one of Carpenter's greatest moments, creating a terrifying atmosphere of claustrophobia, suspense and paranoia. And Kurt Russell is as good as he's ever been, wearing one of the best beards in movie history.Added to that,the special effects can't hope to be as creepy to our seen-it-all eyes as they were to the film's first viewers, but we can still enjoy the monster's unique weirdness, and the story is a rock-solid yarn.And most of all,it is not just an excellent remake, it's an excellent movie, and an almost perfect horror movie as it shows more originality, wit and invention than possibly any other film in its category.Also,it is as influential as Alien for its blend of action, sci-fi and chilling horror.Finally,it is a masterpiece.