Isolated Paranoia at it's height!

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2006)

John Carpenter still is the master of terror. His scares go far beyond the typical jump out of your seat thrills although he often delivers those as well. As he proves in The Thing, and also with The Fog his level of scare goes into the psychological and makes your skin crawl with every detail of it. The Thing is put together beginning to end to scare and not just with the alien life form itself but the setting and the characters and everything else around it.
The Thing takes place in the Antarctic which plays such an enormous role in how this film makes you feel. You couldn't possibly be any more isolated than these men are. Despite all there modern equipment and living arrangements they are thousands of miles from any other human being or contact and all they have is each other. Each one of them have their own skills and reason for being there and overall they have it pretty easy considering their location. That is until another local expedition brings something over to them that will uproot everything. A Norwegian expedition uncovers something in the ice that eventually makes it's way to the American expedition and now is determined to get inside each and every man in order to eliminate them so no one can stop him from continuing on world domination. It's a shape shifter but so much more than that. It literally takes over the person or thing that it inhabits. Given time it can act, speak, think exactly like it's host. What does this mean?? It means that any one of the men in the American expedition could be infected with The Thing. That drives up the level of paranoia wondering who is infected, which one of them is it and when will it be revealed. And when it is Carpenter reveals it in a horrible, gruesome, gut wrenching way. This really is one of the ultimate sci-fi horror films of the eighties. Anyone watching this will have their nerves on end as much as everyone locked away in that habitat.
The cast is good!! Kurt Russell is great in the lead role as the tough as nails, quasi-leader R.J. MacReady. He's very rough around the edges, mean almost but bent on survival not only for himself but to protect the world from this thing getting out. Wilford Brimley plays the doctor of the crew who immediately becomes overtly paranoid when he realizes any one of them could be the alien. Unfortunately his behavior marks him to everyone else as the possible alien and they lock him away. T.K. Carter plays Nauls, somewhat of MacReady's adversary especially when it comes to looking at who may or may not be next. Everyone's performance is very intense and adds to the action. Each one of them plays the victim and the paranoia very well. More than anything this film is about isolation and these men being hunted in such a small area with no other option but to try and stop it. It's an intense thrill ride and any fan of sci-fi or horror must see this absolute John Carpenter classic film!! 8/10