The Big Picture
John Carpenter’s
The Thing
is a masterpiece of horror that explores human behavior through intense paranoia and groundbreaking effects.
The film’s focus on miscommunication and trust issues adds another layer of terror, making it a cult classic despite initial poor reception.
The ambiguous ending, with characters facing the unknown, reinforces themes of isolation and vulnerability, inviting audience interpretation.
There are few filmmakers within the history of horror cinema that have changed the genre as significantly as John Carpenter. While he’s known for making very intense films with striking images of pure visceral horror, Carpenter’s work is particularly scary because of his understanding of human behavior.
Carpenter’s work, while drawing from the supernatural, addresses authentic feelings of distress that are grounded in paranoia. No film is better evidence of this than his 1982 masterpiece The Thing, a film that draws from 1951’s The Thing From Another World, yet improves upon it in every possible way. Although it’s a work of unrelenting paranoia from the moment that it begins, The Thing foreshadows its ending with a clever Easter Egg in its first ten minutes.
The Thing (1982)
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Release Date June 25, 1982
Runtime 109
‘The Thing’ Foreshadows Its Ending
Set in the blisteringly cold winter of Antarctica, The Thing follows a group of American scientists who are assigned to work at a remote research station that is far removed from any other form of civilization. Although most of the researchers consider the position to amount to little more than menial labor, the team is first alerted to the presence of an existential threat when they encounter a Norwegian helicopter from a neighboring base. The American researchers witness a Norwegian pilot detonating himself within the opening moments of The Thing, leaving the viewer with a strong sense of paranoia. The justification for why a character the audience does not know would result in such violent madness is an effective hook that lingers throughout the rest of the film.
While the Americans R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell), Childs (Keith David), and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) attempts to reason with the enigmatic pilot and bring him to safety, the Norwegian appears to be shouting in a deranged manner whilst pursuing a sled dog. As a result, the station commander, Garry (Donald Moffat) shoots the pilot in self-defense. Although the Americans assume that the pilot was intending to harm them, the Norwegian was actually alerting them to the horror in plain sight. When translated, the pilot says “that’s not a dog” and warns the Americans to “get the hell away.” This implies that the Norwegian researchers have already dealt with the alien threat, and that the pilot was actually trying to prevent “the thing” from reaping similar havoc on their crew.
Although the truth is not revealed to MacReady and his allies until later, the death of the pilot makes The Thing’s story more tragic. The titular creature is one of cinema’s greatest villains because the audience never sees the monster, as it has the power to mask itself and inhabit mortal beings. The Norwegian character’s death speaks to the cyclical nature of how “the thing” comes to haunt its victims; since the characters are unwilling to harm the dog due to their assumption that it’s an innocent creature, they are blind to the actual threat that awaits them.
Related Kurt Russell Was John Carpenter’s Last Choice for ‘The Thing’ Almost all of Hollywood was considered before Carpenter’s frequent collaborator got the job.
‘The Thing’ Addresses the Perils of Miscommunication
Image via Universal Pictures
In addition to explaining why the Norwegian scientists disappeared in the first place, The Thing’s opening sequence teases its thematic focus on the perils of miscommunication. While the alien creature’s violent strength makes it a terrifying antagonist, its power lies in its ability to hide its true form. The characters’ inability to identify what their opponent looks like results in a breakdown of communication where everyone is distrustful of each other’s intentions. In the dark world of The Thing, even acts of compassion can be misinterpreted as aggression. The Norwegian pilot goes out of his way to send a warning to people he doesn’t know in order to hopefully spare them of the same fate that befell his companions, and ends up giving his life in the process.
While it’s a cruelly ironic twist for those that can interpret what the character is saying, The Thing forces the audience to interpret events through the eyes of its characters. Had the pilot’s actual lines been provided for the audience through subtitles, the audience would be privy to information that the characters weren’t. The pilot’s actions, while explainable later, seem just as baffling to MacReady and his companions as they do to the audience. This makesthe characters in The Thing feel more relatable, as they are only responding to the situation in the way that they feel is most appropriate. This comes across well thanks to Russell’s excellent performance as MacReady, which certainly ranks among the best he has ever given.
Why Ambiguity Makes ‘The Thing’ Even Scarier
Although it’s a conclusion that film fans have debated ever since the film’s release in 1982, the ambiguity of The Thing’s ending makes it more effective. The lingering terror that either MacReady or Childs could be infected forces the viewer to question the characters that they’ve grown invested in throughout the story; neither character knows the truth either, and it’s evident that whatever alliance they’ve formed will likely result in one of them despising the other. The isolation that the two men face as they await the next iteration of “the thing” puts them in the same vulnerable position that the pilot was in the opening sequence. The Thing remains such a classic because its open-ended nature invites the audience to share their own interpretation of how it concludes.
While it wasn’t successful commercially or critically upon its initial release, The Thing has only grown in popularity over time, and is now regarded as one of the decade’s definitive cult classics. Although much of the film’s brilliance lies in its groundbreaking makeup and visual effects work, it also uniquely experiments with the paranoia within the story. While certainly relevant during the film’s release in the midst of the Cold War, its message about the importance of communication and trust feels even more relevant today than it has ever been before.
The Thing is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
Rent on Prime Video