The Thing (1982) Directed by John Carpenter, Starring Kurt Russell,
Keith David, Wilford Brimley
Before John Carpenter turned his hand to anaemic pseudo-horror films like Vampires and Ghosts of Mars, the one-time 'wunderkind' of bone chilling cinema was churning out classic after classic. Check out his earlier work, which includes The Fog, Halloween (quintessential slasher films that spawned a thousand imitators) They Live!, Prince of Darkness and Christine to see what I mean.
His crowning achievement though, is surely The Thing.
This was a remake of the 1950s Howard Hawks 'creature feature' The
Thing from Another World, where a remote Antarctic outpost is besieged by a
bodysnatching predator from outer space. The original film was an
effective little thriller in its own right, but was somewhat hampered by
the hokey production values of the time.
Here Carpenter takes the source material and beefs it up for a whole
new generation and in the process, creates some of the most visceral and
horrifying sequences ever committed to celluloid.
Cynics will notice similarities to Alien, and indeed, The Thing may have
been trying to catch the same commercial wave set up by Ridley Scott,
but Carpenters work is, in many ways, superior.
The Thing is remembered for the gooey horror effects rendered by
award-winning make-up artists Roy Arbogast and Rob Bottin. Their unflinching
work still easily eclipses anything CGI geeks can dream up, but it is the potent blend of psychological drama, tension and even a little humour, which elevates the film above its peers.
This is illustrated perfectly in the 'petri dish/blood test' scene
where desperate main protagonist RJ MacCready (Kurt Russell) forcibly
corrals the remaining men, binding them to a couch and drawing blood from each
of them to determine who is the alien.
During this nail biting sequence, the grotesque invader is exposed in a
gory climax - half of the crew becomes Thing-fodder, the other half is left to
wonder "Who do you trust, and who do you torch?"
The tempo of the film slowly builds up an unnerving sense of dread, culminating in an apocalyptic showdown with the beastie, offering an uncompromising ending that is quite rare for this genre.