[10]

This movie does two things extraordinarily well. It transports me and it terrifies me. Before anything scary even happens, director John Carpenter succeeds in creating an atmosphere of mystery and suspense that locks me into the film and chills me to the bone. The story features a group of men holed up in an Antarctic research station who discover an alien (the outer space kind) buried in the ice. They carve the creature out of its entombment and bring it back for study, and that's when all hell breaks loose. While it certainly services those who just want an amazing creature feature, it also operates as a nail-biting mystery. Since the alien can take any shape or form, the characters never know who to trust. They begin suspecting each other and the horror, which had already been pushing in on them from the outside, is suddenly among them. That's when things get really good. 

Kurt Russell makes a fine leading man for the film, surrounded by a solid ensemble of character actors that includes Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur, Richard Dysart, Peter Maloney, and David Moffat. Perhaps the film’s biggest star, however, is make-up effects artist Rob Bottin, who conjures some of the most horrific special effects you’ll ever see — I’m talking about stuff that would give Francis Bacon and H.R. Giger nightmares.

When I say The Thing transports me, I should also note that it’s a one-way trip.  It’s a dire film that offers no glimmer of hope, where the happy ending is that you get to die.  It’s serious shit, and one of the finest horror films ever made.

Trivia: This film is a remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World (which is pretty good in its own right), which is in turn based on the short story “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr.