One of the best horror films of the last millennium

Rating: 8/10 (12 November 2003)

Watching John Carpenter's The Thing, I was reminded of how good a filmmaker he used to be. In the 1970's John brought us Assault on Precinct 13, Elvis and one of the most profitable and copied films of all time, Halloween. In the 1980's he was involved with no less than 8 films including Escape from New York, The Fog, Big Trouble in Little China and Starman. However, it was his 1982 release of The Thing that is most revered in the new millennium and now it is re-mastered and re-issued on home DVD.
Based loosely on the original 1951 film, Thing From Another Planet, John Carpenter set out to remake the film keeping only a few of the original ideas in tact. To ensure success, John assembled an A-list of B-list stars including Wilfred Brimley, Keith David, Richard Mauser and Richard Dysart and circled them around best friend Kurt Russell (Escape from L.A.) in an isolated compound in the Arctic.
The film begins with an encounter with a Norwegian group of men who are trying to shoot and destroy a dog from their helicopter. The chopper is soon destroyed and the Norwegian killed, so Kurt (Mac) and the others set out to discover the origin of their visitors. Upon arrival at the Norwegian camp, they discover dead frozen bodies and a block of ice that seems to have transported something to the compound. Outside, they find the burned remains of a creature that has human-like qualities and they inevitably bring this hideous piece of flesh and bone back for examination.

It's not long before the dog they took in exposes itself to the group as an alien lifeform that can take on the identity of another being, and soon one by one, the humans become victims and hosts to the alien's intentions.

Shot almost 23 years ago, I am amazed at how the special effects still hold up today. The creature effects by Roy Arbogast (Jaws, Return of the Jedi), have not been bettered by new technology and the scene where Norris (Charles Hallahan) has his chest collapse and literally loses his head and we watch it grow spider legs and run out of the room, is as potent and memorable as John Hurt's creature birth in the original Alien.
This movie had a lot of things going against it in 1982. It had a cast that consisted of only men (not one woman appears in the film), it had effects deemed too gory for the times and most importantly, it was released the same year as Steven Speilberg's cute alien movie E.T. However, where E.T. ,upon present day viewing, shows signs of dating and blue screen special effects, The Thing continues to show like it was made just yesterday with precision and craftsmanship. The movie has a sense of claustrophobia and urgency and its end, which is far from Hollywood typical, might leave room for a sequel possibility, but not with the same cast of characters. I also appreciated that John Carpenter did not fall prey to the typical horror film ending that we are now so accustomed, where just when you think it is all over, the killing entity gets one last cheap fright out of the audience.
The 90's and post 2000 have not been kind to Mr. Carpenter. He has directed such stinkers as Ghosts of Mars and Escape to L.A. and Body Bags, and John's reluctance to work under the Hollywood umbrella of a major studio and budget now show with his cheesy effects and locations. However, he and Kurt Russell can look back proud to the summer of 1982 when they put one of the best horror films in history on celluloid.