Kurt Russell, gun-toting Norwegians and a spider-head

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2005)

Claustrophobia has never been so terrifying and featuring flame-throwers so prominently. John Carpenter and Kurt Russell manage to blow up a huge chunk of Antarctica in this brilliantly gory film, that portrays extra-terrestrials not as Reese's Pieces eating domiciles but graphic shape-shifters that slaughter dogs, not too mention, well, all of the cast. The mood of the movie is summed up by MacReady's speech halfway through briefly after the barbecuing of an alien replicate;
"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."
It goes without saying that out in the open is below 40 - a testament to 1980's science fiction fatalism that ranges from the apocalyptic future of The Terminator to the selfish corporatism of Aliens - as the base members either become devoured or go insane. Stepping up as the unlikely hero is the protesting helicopter pilot John MacReady, who takes to wearing a cheerful sombrero and gets steadily drunker as the other men drop like flies. 'Cabin fever' seem to be the key words when the survivors barricade themselves in; The Thing is the best fictional depiction of paranoia bar none. Even MacReady threatens to set off explosives when he is subjected to an inquiry.
Following the routine thriller build-up of viewing a previous team's demise and Kurt Russell yelling "Sweden!", the movie does not offer an uplifting moral or ending - the team is seen as inevitably doomed and its a matter of taking the alien down with them. The movie supplies some eye-popping moments such as an unfortunate chap getting his arms bitten off by a stomach with fangs and a head detaching from a body and scurrying around on stalk legs (cue the token stoner to exclaim "You gotta be f*cking kidding.")
John Carpenter delivers in this organic matter-spattering classic, the gruesome effects and the suffocating atmosphere still a good time almost a quarter-century on. There hasn't been a horror director since that has looked so closely at the darker side of human nature.