As someone who tries to see every new horror movie that comes out, I've built up a pretty extensive mental database of the spooky, gory and terrifying over the years. Put it this way — If you find someone who loves you as much as I love horror movies, then you're going to be a happy and fulfilled person.
I even find something to love in most of the bad horror movies I've seen, but that's not what I'm here to write about today. Since we're celebrating 31 Days of Horror here at 1428 Elm, I had to bring the heat with my favorite horror movie of all time. Maybe "bring the heat" is the wrong way to put it, because this is one of the iciest movies this side of Elsa, Anna and Olaf. I'm referring, of course, to the 1982 masterpiece, The Thing.
For my money, The Thing is the best horror movie ever made. It's directed by John Carpenter, one of the true masters of the genre. It's endlessly rewatchable and wholly unique. If you're a horror fan, this classic has it all.
You might name a different horror movie as your personal favorite, but that's OK, nobody's perfect. I'm here today to give you five reasons why The Thing hasn't been beaten before or since.
The unique setting
There are many stereotypical settings in horror movies, from summer camps to haunted houses to remote cabins in the woods. Every once in a while we'll get one in a snowy setting, like The Shining, 30 Days of Night or Jack Frost, but those take place in Colorado, Alaska and California, respectively. Off the top of my head, the only Antarctic horror movie I can think of is the first Alien vs. Predator, and let's just say that one isn't remembered especially fondly.
Antarctica is such an amazing setting for a horror movie. Omnipresent ice and sub-zero temperatures not only look and sound great when you can see the characters' breath and hear the crunch of their footsteps in the snow, they provide The Thing with consequential plot devices, such as the alien being able to outlast its human foes by just freezing and waiting for the next group that comes along to set it loose. This feels like humanity's last stand against a force that will become unstoppable if it ever reaches civilization.
A scientific research facility provides everything you'd want in a scare-fest. It's claustrophobic but full of interesting equipment, with potential horrors awaiting around every corner. Going outside isn't the best option since it's 40-below, forcing our characters to stay inside and confront their fears.
Antarctica is so desolate that it's completely understandable how someone can succumb to madness after spending some time there. It's basically solitary confinement, except freezing cold. That's why when the Norwegians show up at the beginning of the movie, shooting at a seemingly innocent dog and shouting unintelligible things, everyone just assumes they've lost their minds instead of believing there's some real danger among them.
A masterclass in practical effects
So many modern horror movies rely so heavily on CGI. Most of it is so obvious that it takes the audience out of the immersion that a great horror movie demands. The Thing set the standard in 1982, and nobody has come close to topping it since.
There is so much gnarly insanity in this movie, and it's pretty much all done practically. The split-face corpse discovered at the Norwegian camp gives a hint of what's to come, then the scene with the dogs in the kennel shows just how horrifying those effects can be in action. Those are far from the only nightmarishly creative transformations, though. Legendary special effects wizard Rob Bottin emptied the tank in this movie (quite literally, as he was hospitalized with exhaustion after working tirelessly for more than a year without breaks), creating stomach-turning gruesomeness that only gets crazier as the movie goes on.
Bennings' oversized hands and Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like scream before being torched by a flamethrower is somehow one of the tamest moments in this thrill ride. Everything that unfolds once Norris gets hit with the defibrillator, from his chest biting off Dr. Copper's arms to the tentacled monstrosity that rises out of him and the spider-head thing that tries to scurry away, is in the pantheon of unforgettable horror scenes. Palmer's face melting and his body falling upwards to the ceiling only upped the ante, and that was before he flipped Windows upside-down and chewed on his head.
I'm always disappointed if I watch a horror movie that doesn't do its best to provide at least two or three memorable kills. After seeing what they accomplished with The Thing, it's hard not to be spoiled, because there are at least half a dozen scenes that will never un-sear themselves from my brain.
An ever-changing, unsolvable mystery
A lot of horror movies double as mysteries, encouraging the viewer to engage in a guessing game of whodunnit before the final reveal. The Thing is like the Schrödinger's cat of horror movies, because every character is and isn't the killer at the same time. You can't ever rule anybody out, because even if they're human at one moment, they could have been assimilated by the Thing by time we see them next. Nobody is ever above suspicion, let alone if their whereabouts are unaccounted for for even a few minutes.
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the blood test scene. This is the tensest moment in the movie, and the first time you watch it, you have no idea what to expect (Side note, I absolutely loved the homage that Sinners paid to the blood test scene earlier this year with its garlic-tasting scene). Could burning a petri dish of blood with a red-hot filament possibly expose the enemy among the crew, or is it all just a giant red herring? Having everybody tied up only ratchets up the tension.
When MacReady tests Palmer's blood and it screeches as it leaps to the floor, it's game on for a scene of sheer lunacy. I mentioned above about what Palmer did once he was exposed, but everything around him only made what happened even scarier. MacReady's shock, the crew screaming and trying to escape, the flamethrower not working, and the chef's kiss denouement of MacReady blowing up the flaming mutation in the snow with a thrown stick of dynamite — it really doesn't get any better.
Kurt Freaking Russell
It needs to be said that the entire cast is phenomenal. Some of the line readings are so inspired, such as Donald Moffat's outburst as Garry "I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS F****** COUCH!" Everyone in the crew gets their own memorable moments, and they make the most of them, from Wilford Brimley's Blair taking an ax to the communications equipment to T.K. Carter's Nauls roller skating around the base. They're not just future meat for the Thing, they're characters with personality, something we don't always get in this genre.
Keith David hasn't even been mentioned yet, and he deserves special recognition for being such a worthy foil to the star of the show, Kurt Russell. Fun fact: as anyone on Letterboxd can attest, at the end of the year the app tells you the director and actor whose movies you watched the most. A few years ago, Keith David was my number one actor, because I'd watched The Thing and Nope multiple times, plus he's in a ton of other films. I'm always happy whenever he shows up.
Kurt Russell is so good as MacReady that he needed his own section here. To me, he's on the short list of coolest movie stars to ever exist — the perfect mix of looks, coolness and toughness. When Kurt Russell beats somebody up, I believe it. When he gets the girl, it's easy to see why. When he navigates a frozen hellscape to survive as long as possible against a shape-shifting, 100,000-year-old demon from outer space, somehow he's one of the few people who could plausibly pull that off.
MacReady is thinking on his feet the entire movie, at one point going from the prime suspect to the leader of the pack within minutes. He's smart, capable and he makes liberal use of his always-handy flamethrower. The Thing is one bleak-ass movie, but there are moments of hilarity too, such as when he somersaults away from the monstrosity that Blair has become and throws a stick of dynamite at it as he yells, "Yeah, f*** you too!"
The Thing is iconic, and a big reason why is that Russell was the perfect choice for its most important part.
An ending that's still hotly debated over four decades later
Let's stick with Russell and David, because the final scene of the movie is so damn good, with so much left to the imagination and interpretation, that I almost can't believe it every time I watch it again.
It takes multiple viewings to get a decent grip on who was the Thing and when it got them. This is a movie with explosions galore and huge scares, but also a lot of nuance and subtlety that demands a close examination. The final scene is the cherry on top, with Russell and David going toe-to-toe to deliver an ending that still has people talking.
Sometimes ambiguous ending are infuriating because they just seem lazy. There's not necessarily any evidence to support any particular conclusion, leaving the audience to finish it in their mind like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. The Thing is so much better than that. For one thing, there are four possible explanations: either MacReady is the Thing, Childs is the Thing, neither is the Thing, or they're both the Thing. There's real evidence throughout the movie to support each one of those readings, and in fact, nobody to this day can agree on one story.
Carpenter has said that only he knows who, if anyone, is the Thing at the end, but although he's said the evidence is there for anyone who wants to speculate, he's been unwilling to share the true answer with us yet. At this point, I'm guessing he never will, but it's better that way, because once he does, there'll be no reason to debate it any further. I found a Reddit thread discussing the ending from 12 years ago, and there are still people arguing in it. Not many movies invite that kind of dialogue so long after release.
For what it's worth, I subscribe to the theory that only Childs is the Thing because he wouldn't have taken the drink when MacReady offered it to him because he would have been afraid of. MacReady laughs as he rests his head because he's figured it out. That would also call back to when he short-circuited the computer by pouring his drink into it after it beat him at chess earlier in the film. The alcohol helped him "win" both times.
Of course, that could all be rubbish, and the fact that we never saw MacReady's blood get tested but we did see his discarded clothes with the nametag attached points to him being the Thing all along. He was also alone for quite a while outside, and someone on the crew remarked that nobody could have made their way back to the camp in those conditions.
Maybe Kevin Garnett was talking about the ending of The Thing when he yelled, "Anything is possible!" when his Boston Celtics won the NBA championship in 2008. Who can say? The ending is just that good.
The 2002 video game and the 2011 prequel provide some answers and new evidence, but seeing as Carpenter didn't direct either one, most fans discount them when it comes to figuring out the original canon.