The Thing Review
Written by: MistressOf Horror
Carpenter’s film The Thing a remake of the 1951 classic --The Thing From Another World.
The story starts out in Antarctica, where a group of scientists are bunkered until one day they are disturbed by the sounds of gunshots coming from a Norwegian helicopter, apparently trying to kill a runaway dog. They miss their quarry, and the Norwegians end up getting offed, with no explanation as to what their problem is. Fearing more violence, the American crew travels to the Norwegian camp, only to find some very odd occurrences, including a mangled humanoid body that has normal internal organs. Then, the dog reveals that is is not really a dog, but some sort of alien organism with the power to mimic other life-forms and dominate until it takes over everything around it. The men of the camp are its next intended victims, and soon, no one can trust the others
This film is set in a desolate, icy and snowy surroundings which amplified the film’s overall bleak and claustrophobic tone. The audience can feel the isolation while watching this movie and sympathize with the characters and their predicament on a deeper level. The actors in this great film also brought in their fair share of positive weight with Kurt Russell and Keith David, in particular, owning the screen every time they popped up.
It must be said that since the action started at frame one, we dont get too much into the characters’ backgrounds. Not knowing much about them definitely jacked the paranoia factor to overdrive when it came to the guessing game that this flick was playing on us. Speaking of paranoia, there is a tension-filled “blood testing” scene. Even after watching it over and over, To this day, I have yet to see a movie that played that angle with such efficiency.
Lots of “surprise” beast attacks!
All in all, I have absolutely nothing negative to say about "The Thing". To me, it’s a perfect horror effort, from the acting, the directing, the gloomy score, the open-ended ending…This film was a horror lovers delight !