Excellent, Unparalleled Horror

Rating: 10/10 (19 June 2001)

When I was around the tender age of eight or so my dad let me watch the edited-for-television version of this movie, and being an eight-year-old it scared the crap out of me. Just recently I was compelled to rent the video and to my astonishment it scared me even more then it had when I was little. The feelings of isolation and pure terror that are created by John Carpenter, Rob Bottin, and the rest of the cast and crew are uncompromisingly brutal and harsh. With almost no comic relief, no feminine characters, and unrelenting suspense, Carpenter doesn't allow himself to get bogged down in formulaic plot twists or romance. He keeps the characters clear-cut and simple, defining them by their actions alone. The "Thing" itself is a gory wonder, and apparently Bottin, the special effects supervisor, had to check himself into a hospital at the end of the shoot because he was reeling from exhaustion. The suspense scenes (like at the beginning of the movie when the dog is being chased by the Norwegian helicopter, for no apparent reason) work extremely well. This is by far Carpenter's best effort as a director (apologies to those who think differently). Carpenter never relents in his suspense, and that is what separates this from most other horror movies.