You feel alive when you watch this movie...

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2000)

Just to have mentioned it, I'm up to double digit numbers when counting the number of times I've let myself become a part of this movie. To me it's a classic, maybe not due to the story, maybe not because it isn't the best movie ever made (maybe Lost Highway is?) but because of the embodying atmosphere Carpenter creates, the way he tells this simple story, the way it doesn't fully scare you, but the way it makes you feel... alive.
Carpenter's The Thing is a true masterpiece in a way you are left to appreciate yourself, you may like to delve and criticise such things as the plot and characters, or you can simply not say anything about it. I love the atmosphere in this movie, the slow pace of the movie, from the start... the music, the ice, the snow, the cold yet comfortable air, the atmosphere that so surrounds you, the whole from the start to the limit of infinity, to the end. The still dense music that puts you in a mood (if you allow yourself) that makes the whole movie so perfect. Just feel relaxed.
Carpenter might not be true to Campbells novel, but then again isn't the novel a story of an immense yet subtle threat to humanity, and isn't Carpenters movie that too? While the heart of the novel lies in the conversations between the scientists at a polar research station, their suspicions, their fear, fear of each other, fear of the entity... the alien... their dwellings on what it is, it's nature, why it acts like it does... and while Campbells novel is a storywise and storytellingwise original masterpiece (out of which infinitely many clones have come, storywise as well as storytellingwise, Campbell - as we all know - started the Golden Era in the 30's of science fiction novel's, the era during which Asimov, Simak, Heinleinen, Clark and the others released either some of their first or some of their best novel's, all of which somehow went over to Campbells premise of not writing science fiction stories of galaxy sized fights with heroes throwing planets at each other, but stories with a content, a premise, an atmosphere...). Carpenter's movie has a story based up on the novel by Campbell, but Carpenter doesn't place the heart of the movie on the conversations between the scientists at the research station, the scientists do fear and focus their thoughts on what it is among them that is killing and why it does so, but Carpenter has cut up and reassembled the story and tells it his own way, and he does this by simple means... that so talks to you.
Set on a research station (unclear what research is actually conducted there) surrounded by cold ice, cold snow... all through the movie one sits still, sometimes jumping up or trying to control ones eyes as an unexpected gross effect takes place (no computer animated effects, real - somewhat - cronenberg styled effects, heads falling, dripping of the bodies). Still all the time, at no time control over the movie is lost, the slow, the still.. lovely paced way of bringing forth the movie is never lost, things go quiet, brings you back, small things happen, all the time the fear returns as one does not know from where the entity, the thing, will attack next, you don't necessarily get truly scared (though some things might actually accomplish that, depends on who you are), but one does feel the tension, and as such lets the movie continue, all the while... the music plays... who goes there is truly what one wonders. It's still, it's cold, the music comes in and with the visuals builds up an atmosphere I've never found in any other movie. With atmosphere I simply mean atmosphere, what is the atmosphere like in your room, still, dark, quiet..? That's atmosphere, not so fascinating being a part of the atmosphere in your room (unless one can manage to find some deep philosophical meaning with ones empty room, then it can become fascinating, but that's to noone but yourself), but being there, being a part of the air, the cold air, the icy snow covered lands, the loneliness.. the isolation and the threat... it's a thought that grows on you... scares you..
I wish to avoid saying anything about the story, it's a science fiction movie, both horror/thriller suspense, but in the ground it is a movie with a story and an atmosphere that somehow talks greatly to me, not that I love the cold winter, but the stillness of the antarctic, the knowledge of the icy atmosphere, the mood, the dense - melting into - music, just helps bring this atmosphere, this movie alive...
The story isn't simple, the threat is just such a well known threat, but never have the whole concept of an single entity, one single aliens threat to the whole of humanity, been filmed better...
The Thing is, we don't know Who Goes There...