'I know I'm human.'

Rating: 9/10 (28 July 2005)

John Carpenter's remake of 'The Thing' was buried at the box office by another visitor from outer space that went by the name of 'E.T.' But the passage of time has seen this movie gain a serious following thanks to home video, and many people now view 'The Thing' as one of the all-time great horror/sci-fi films.
A group of researchers at an Antarctic science facility are unwittingly exposed to an alien organism that has the ability to perfectly imitate any life form it comes in contact with. As the gravity of the situation becomes frighteningly obvious, and with no way of contacting the outside world, the men struggle to determine who's human and who isn't, as the alien life form slowly moves through their ranks, taking them over one by one.
As an exercise in paranoia, 'The Thing' works very well. The characters don't know who to trust, and neither do we. With the exception of one scene early on, no one is shown being 'taken over' by the Thing, meaning anyone could not be all that they appear to be. In the original film, the monster was a visible, hostile menace. In the remake, the monster can look and act like your friend, much like in the original short story both movies were based on. Carpenter gets maximum mileage from this concept, milking the paranoia and dread for all it's worth.
But still, this is a horror movie at heart, and horror fans won't be disappointed. While the Thing prefers to stay hidden and secretive, there are numerous scenes where it is drawn into the open and/or revealed, and the end results aren't pretty. These sequences are startling and gruesomely imaginative, thanks to the shocking make-up effects done by youthful special effects wizard Rob Bottin; some of the things he comes up are bizarre and frightening (check out that 'spider-head'), and these scenes still hold up, even by today's standards. On the basis of these sequences, lots of critics dismissed 'The Thing' as a snowbound 'Alien' clone, but that's not an accurate assessment, although there are some similarities.
Still, there are other scenes where the movie is effective: the opening scene with the helicopter is mysterious and strange, and the exploration of an abandoned camp where unspeakable things happened is eerie and haunting. The 'blood test' scene is very suspenseful, and the payoff will make you leap from your chair. The ending of 'The Thing' is refreshingly downbeat and bleak, and is a nice change from all those 'happy' endings we've had to endure.
'The Thing' has improved with age; what was once dismissed as a 'freak show' has evolved into a classic horror/science-fiction movie.