I Love John Carpenter

Rating: 10/10 (25 March 2016)

The Thing (1982), is directed by John Carpenter and stars Kurt Russell, as the leader of a crew stuck in Antarctica in the first week of winter because an alien has made its way into their base, kills anything it touches, and can only be destroyed by fire. It's based on the John W.Campbell short story "Who Goes There?" The film is awesome.The Thing is an extremely claustrophobic, tense and frightening story, with fantastic acting, perfect direction and brilliant animatronic/models, that made the cast feel sick to their stomachs when they first saw them, and I don't blame them, they are extremely realistic, detailed and scary. They are used in the best way possible.
As said earlier, the acting is brilliant. The casting of Kurt Russell as R.J "Mac" MacReady is perfect, he is great as a brave but cautious leader that wants to see as little of his crew killed as possible. Keith David is also great as Childs, an extremely angry guy that hates the situation that they are in, and is kinda dislikeable as a character for a lot of the film, which really works to the film's advantage, giving it an element of distrust to go along with the tension.
The direction and cinematography is amazing. The Thing is a beautiful looking film, with amazing set design and perfect lighting. The direction of the scenes is great. In some of the more tense scenes, for example where they are testing blood to see who is a thing and who isn't, is my favourite scene in the entire film, John Carpenter knows just how long to keep a shot going and keep the audience waiting, this winds up the tension perfectly, to an extremely frightening climax to the scene which is shot perfectly. A great thing that John Carpenter did, was to chill the set whilst the scenes were being shot, so it felt like the film was actually being filmed in Antarctica, this also gives the film a very chilling feel, which, in my opinion, just heightens the tension and really improves the film, it also helps you feel like the actors are actually in Antarctica. In interviews of both the actors and John Carpenter, it has been said that the actors AND the director did not know who was the thing and who wasn't in all of the dialogue scenes, which means that when you are watching it you know just as much as the actors, which really helps with bringing an element of distrust to the film.
Overall, The Thing is the perfect science-fiction/horror film, along with Alien. 10/10 from me.