Visceral Sci-fi body-horror par excellence

Rating: 8/10 (5 August 2012)

In the frozen emptiness of the Antarctic, a research team finds itself confronted with the very stuff of nightmares when a vicious parasitic alien life-form with the ability to assume the form of its victims is inadvertently awakened from its slumber under the ice.
Often cited as a remake of the 1951 Sci-fi flick 'The Thing from Another World', Carpenter's film is really a more faithful adaption of the original source material of the short story 'Who Goes There' by John W. Campbell Jr., and is the first (and most accomplished) part in Carpenter's so-called 'Apocalypse Trilogy' - a loose collection of films whose only connection is a brooding atmosphere of impending doom (the other parts being the slightly disappointing 'Prince of Darkness' (1987) and the satisfying meta-fiction romp 'In the Mouth of Madness (1995)). In 'The Thing' the impending doom engendered by the presence of the parasitic alien is heightened by the setting of the remote icy wilderness and the piercing sense of growing isolation born from suspicion as it dawns on the members of the team what they are up against and that no-one can be trusted as any one of them may be the Thing. Oh, and not forgetting the brilliantly ominous score courtesy of Ennio Morricone!
All this being said, the real stand out quality of 'The Thing' are the special effects: gloriously breaking the oft-repeated "leave-it-to-the-audience's-imagination" dictum 'The Thing' serves as an exemplary example that sometimes the audience's imagination ISN'T scarier than what's on screen. In fact, the sheer visceral body-horror of the effects in 'The Thing' would make David Cronenberg proud, and indeed one scene in particular makes the famed John Hurt chest-explosion sequence in 'Alien' (that other Horror Sci-fi masterpiece) look amusing and woefully amateur! High praise indeed, and the fact that all this is done without a jot of CGI makes it both a testament to the sheer ingenuity of the special effects department and a reprimanding finger-shake to all films that have lazily relied on such computer generated effects for their thrills.
Bizarrely this film was a flop upon its initial release, but time generally stands as a good judge in these matters and 'The Thing' has rightly assumed a position as one of Carpenter's best films as well as one of the finest hybrids of horror and science fiction you are likely to find outside of the Nostromo.