John Carpenter's The Thing Review

John Carpenter's The Thing

Director: John Carpenter

Stars: Kurt Russell, Keith David, T.K Carter, Richard Dysart, Wilford Brimley, David Clennon, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis & Thomas G. Waites

Running Time: 109 Minutes

Release: 26^th August 1982.

In the winter of 1982, in Antarctica, a sled dog is being chased by a Norwegian helicopter and one of the men is firing at it, trying to stop it as they know what it really is....., they reach the American base where the dog tries to hide and the copter is in close pursuit and it lands and a man aboard continues the chase firing at the dog and the helicopter explodes due to a grenade which the Norwegians threw in close proximity, the norwegian is shouting at them In his native tongue and continues firing at the dog and unfortunately for him he accidentally shoots Benning's (Maloney) in the leg which causes the Station Manager Garry (Moffat) to shoot him in the head and slowly over time The Thing starts to assimilate the crew one by one unleashing paranoia, terror and death in it's wake.........

That's all I am saying on the plot of the film as I don't want to spoil it for you and I must say that this is an absolute sci-fi horror classic and it's the first time I have seen the film in it's whole entirety, i've never seen the first half hour of the film. This film has brilliant,characters, script, score, setting and special effects.

The main character of the film is MacReady played by Kurt Russell (who's collaborated with Carpenter four times), he's the manly man Helicopter Pilot who just wants to sit in his shack on the base and get drunk. He's the character we root for in the film to survive and outwit the invader, of course he feels cabin fever like the rest of the of the crew as events unfold at the base and he is a complete badass and rocks an awesome beard.

The other significant character is Childs the mechanic played Keith David and throughout most of the film he's at odds with MacReady, there's not that much trust between them as the film develops, hell no one trusts anyone at all as Thing plant's suspicion and paranoia in there minds by ripping peoples clothes (i'll get into this later) and sabotaging the equipment. Child's does not believe what's going on in the early events of the film but get's shocked quite a lot in the film especially in the sofa tie up scene but he's equally charismatic and cool as MacReady.

The other main player is Blair (Brimley) the biologist who examines the remains of when Thing assimilated the dogs and knows what The Thing is doing and what it would do if it reached civilization, he's the first to get Cabin Fever and is the most severe but you understand what he does early on as he does not want The Thing to escape.

Everyone else is brilliant in there roles and you feel as if they are the characters and that they have known each other for a long period of time and the tension between them feels real, my favourite character of these characters is Garry my favourite scene with him is in the sofa scene his line at the end is incredibly funny and the only one real instance where there is humour in the film, I also like Nauls (T.K Carter) whom I think is the youngest member of the group and you may recognise him from Southern Comfort another film I love, he played Cribbs in that. Also Palmer's (Clennon) reaction to seeing Norris Thing's head on spider legs is priceless it's so perfectly timed.

Now this leads me to the actual Thing itself, it is a parasitic alien life form that supposedly crash landed on earth 100,00 years ago and The Norwegian Research team find The Thing and take it back to it's base (to see what happens watch the 2011 prequel, titled The Thing, it's okay but not on the same level as this). It assimilates its prey which can be any living animal or human by either ingesting and absorbing it's prey by revealing itself and using it's tentacles to pull it in it's prey and ingests them imitating there image, behaviour and faults and it's DNA to hide itself so that it can blend in and hide & wait till one other life form or assimilates them by spreading it's DNA in food assimilating them from within so that the host does not even know that they have been assimilated. It only reveals itself when it's assimilating by ingestion or when it feels it's being attacked. It also can detach a part of it's body to survive and hide and find a new host and bullets can't hurt it it's near unstoppable, if it assimilates a human it does not drink or smoke as it does not want to damage it's DNA but it can adapt.

It can't stand the heat, it thrives in the cold and tends to rip through the hosts clothes if it ingests them and you would need to really pay attention to some-ones behaviour to tell. To this day people still talk about the ambiguous ending as it's one of the most classic, original endings to a horror film.

The Special effects are simply amazing and very gory and grotesque and are done by the brilliant Rob Bottin who's not worked in films since 2002 which is shame as he does amazing grotesque special effects. In this film his effects are really utilized to there full effect is when The Thing reveals it's form are truly horrifying, creepy and very well detailed the only one I will reveal is The Dog I was not prepared for it as I never saw it before and it's one of the most creepiest, grotesque forms in the film and what it does to the other dogs is truly horrifying. Bottin is known for the slow transformations like he did in The Howling and it's the same case here but faster the slowest transformation was the dog, but I am speechless that they were done in 82' and still hold up well today.

The setting of the Antarctica is perfect as it's very isolate and desolate and reminds me much of Space and The Nostromo in Alien it's a staple in sci-fi horror films these days and it looks beautiful well the whole film is as I watched it on Blu-Ray and it looks simply stunning.

The music is equally impressive and no it's not done by John Carpenter, but Ennio Morricone  who is famed for doing westerns and I found it quite unusual that he scored this but it's perfect for the film it really adds to the atmosphere and really builds the tension throughout the film and in most parts in eerie and I must add they use Stevie Wonder's Superstition perfectly for irony !.

All in all it's a masterpiece of a film and along with Carpenter's finest films which he was famed for in the 70's and 80's and this is undoubtedly one of his best films.