THE THING, original movie trailer I am perplexed when I see this movie is showing on cable and the reviewer, whoever that is, gives it two stars on the channel guide. Understandably I could see two and a half stars or three stars but two stars indicates an average movie with several failings. John Carpenter's The Thing does not have those kinds of failings. More below...
This movie is by far John Carpenter's best movie and one of the best horror movies of the eighties. I know many will argue that the original Halloween was the best or The Fog or even Vampires but if you add up all of the elements that went into The Thing it still comes out on top.
That includes being daring enough to have an all male cast who did not look like pretty boys just coming off of their singing tours or out of a cheesy TV drama. He picked an ensemble of mostly older guys who could act and didn't worry about love interests or pointless side plots of MacReady having lover's quarrels with an ex-wife or a couple getting it on after mutual attraction. There was no need. The concentration was on an all male cast getting ripped apart and taken over one by one by The Thing. Any romance would have been a distraction and quite honestly wouldn't seem as realistic. Not that you can't have women in the freezing cold on a scientific mission but they wouldn't be the attractive type and just as the men grew their beards out so would the women grow their leg hair out.
And that's why this movie works. It's a murder mystery with gruesome effects. You have to guess who is now The Thing and who is human. Add to that the isolation of the cold winter and you have a claustrophobic thriller that pulls you in.
Of course the special effects are amazing. Fuck CGI! Okay, I have nothing against CGI but it is way overused as a cheap alternative to matching the effect with the camera shot. Rob Bottin's work is some of the best ever done without the aid of computer graphics. It makes the cold and the dread and the creepiness all that more real.
The main reason I have a fondness for this film, I have to admit, is because it's one of those R-rated films I got away with seeing when I was too young to see R-rated films. That and the original Friday the 13th. I was staying over at a friend's house and he had a now extinct cable channel called OnTV. We watched--in order--The Great Muppet Caper, Star Wars, Friday The 13th and The Thing. Best movie night I ever had. I think this is the perfect kid's horror movie as long as they're not so young it gives them nightmares. No embarrassing sex or nudity for the parents, just icky effects and panic moments to scare you. Goddamn, I wish I was a kid again. I'd love to watch The Thing for the first time all over.
