While it has a strange, vague title, The Thing had enough to it to get
anyone worked up about the outcome of the story. The entire premise
of an alien coming to earth is very clichéd, and has been for quite
some time. In each take on the familiar plot, the alien will have
some sort of strange power, and is usually hostile. In John
Carpenter's The Thing, the alien, or thing as it is referred to in the
movie, fills both those requirements. But along with the alien
lurking around, suspense in this movie is built along the distrust
that is issued among each of the members of the Arctic research
station.
The Thing stars Kurt Russel, Keith David, Wilford Brimley, T.K.
Carter, David Clennon, Richard A. Dystart, Charles Hallahan, Peter
Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, and Thomas Waites
as the crew members on the research station. Not long into the movie,
the crew encounters a group of what seems to be completely insane
Norwegians chasing what looks like a harmless dog, attempting to shoot
and kill it. Soon after they see the helicopter that is chasing the
dog, it crashes with no explanation. Over the night, the dog shows
its true form as The Thing, attacking the other dogs. Not long
afterward, the crew finally begins to grasp exactly what they are
dealing with. The alien kills whatever it is attacked, and then can
form a perfect imitation of its prey. Appearance, personality,
traits, and more are duplicated perfectly. Moreover, the crew
realizes that any one of them could be a copy, and a large amount of
tension is formed as a result of the distrust amongst themselves. One
by one, the members of the station are slowly being killed, and with a
huge storm coming in fast, not knowing what is and what isn't the real
person could be deadly.
While the main idea of the story has been done several times, this
take on an extraterrestrial visit to earth has much different aspects
that make the movie overly enjoyable and frightening. Instead of
fearing a grotesque creature pop out and begin to feed on the humans
hunting it, the real fear lies in the fact that you have no idea who
is and who isn't "infected" by the Thing. This adds tension to even
minor parts in the story. Slowly, you begin to try to pick people out
who you don't trust as you watch the film, just as they do in the
story. For a movie made in the 80's, the effects, and design to the
beast were truly high-quality for the standards of that time criteria.
One could only imagine how scary this movie would have been when it
first came out, but at this point it looks like rubbish compared to
the computer-generated monsters we have in movies today. As a result,
the creature in this movie does not add much horror elements to it for
viewers during this time, like how Alien is to people who weren't
around when it came out in the 70s.
All in all, John Carpenter's The Thing was a fine movie that will keep
you entertained and guessing even after the end of the movie, for it
ends with a cliffhanger. While the terror elements are not as good
nowadays for the movie, the rest of the traits that it consists of
piece it all together quite well. Unlike the normal storyline with
aliens coming to earth, The Thing adds more to the plot then most
movies similar to it do. The suspense, characters, and storyline were
all well built, and contribute greatly to the movie. The Thing is
positively a good horror/suspense/action movie.
Grade - B-
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X-RAMR-ID: 38137
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1292639
X-RT-TitleID: 1021244
X-RT-AuthorID: 10729
X-RT-RatingText: B-
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