John Carpenter is a son of a bitch. Why? Well, in this climate of modern movie making, remakes are all the rage. It’s the go to source for marketing on a well known product to ensure a quick profit at the box office for general audiences who just want to go to the movies to see a well known story. And when people try to argue against this craze, those who are in favor of remakes always win the argument by muttering four words: John Carpenter’s The Thing. The declaration of these four words automatically shuts everyone up and renders any debate against remakes completely void and irrelevant. What makes this movie so unique that it defeats any arguments against remakes?
Well, John Carpenter is an immensely talented film director who took a very good science fiction film called “The Thing from Another World” and turned it in to an amazing horror film called “The Thing.” Now I hate using the word amazing, but in this case it applies. “John Carpenter’s The Thing” is not just an excellent remake, it’s an excellent movie, and an almost perfect horror movie and it’s yet to be toppled in terms of acting, story, tension, pure terror, special effects and a score that is so simplistic and yet so creepy it’s almost impossible to listen to. And did I mention it’s almost the perfect horror movie?
Years later I’ve become so critical that I tend to pick apart even things I adore, but re-watching it again, I can’t actually find a flaw in this movie. It’s simply that good. But I’m pretty much preaching to the choir because any self-respecting horror geek or film buff has likely seen this movie a thousand times by now and has read everything about this movie ad nauseum, but I’m getting my licks in, anyway. “John Carpenter’s The Thing” follows the source material short story “Who Goes There?” rather faithfully and does something many horror films wouldn’t dare: he never quite shows us the monster of the tale. Throughout the entire story, this monster remains an amorphous blob, a perfect predator capable of adaptin and forming in to anything is can cling on to, and its true appearance is a mystery even during the closing credits.
In place of that mystery is some of the most disgusting, horrific, and memorable special effects you’ll ever see as Carpenter and Rob Bottin form some of the most hideous monstrosities you’ll ever lay eyes on and the gore just never seems to stop. Don’t be fooled though, because “The Thing” has quite a sharp story. With a cast of rather notable superb character actors (including Keith David and Richard Masur), we hone down on a group of American Antarctic researchers who find death knocking at their door when they attempt to save a stray dog being hunted down by local Norwegian scientists. What the inevitably discover is that this dog is in fact a formless being simply labeled as “The Thing” that begins to consume each of the male researchers one by one. As the tension builds, the trust dissipates, and every man is in it for himself including our protagonist MacReady who is losing his mind in an attempt to save himself from the clutches of the alien. One of the brilliant aspects of this movie is that Carpenter pretty much makes good use of this barren wasteland as a form of enhancing his story.
Not only is the Antarctic wasteland a hunting ground for this monster, but the suits the men wear serve as a form of symbolism for the beast. Take for example when they’re burning Fuchs, MacReady is explaining that anyone of them could be the monster as they all stand around motionless, formless, and hidden behind thick clothing that conceal their identity signifying that the monster has turned them in to faceless beings capable of turning on either of them at any time. It’s subtle touches like that that make this a film impossible to peg. It’s a whodunit, a science fiction film, a murder mystery, a thriller, a character study, a dark comedy, it’s everything! Meanwhile we can never pin down the beast’s MO because its whole strategy remains ambiguous from minute one.
When you think it’s one being we discover it may be many, when we learn you can destroy its entire body by fire, we learn that each part of it acts independently ensuring its survival making it virtually impossible to kill, and it goes on. Carpenter not only keeps us on our toes, but his characters as well and as the pressure builds the atmosphere becomes ever more maddening and claustrophobic. And by the end of the movie no one has won, no one has lost, it’s simply two prey waiting to see who is the predator waiting to strike. The end. Carpenter, you son of a bitch. I could literally write an entire thesis based around the acting, and the plot devices, and the genius score, but for now this review will have to do. “John Carpenter’s The Thing” is the supreme genre outing, one that will convert any cynical horror buff and bring them to a time where horror movies told stories and kept you frightened for your life.