In late 2022 through early 2023, Ponty and I did an exhaustive rundown of our Top Ten Favorite Films.  His was very thoughtful and deliberate; mine was more or less picking through flicks I had in my DVD collection.

That said, I did put some thought into my Top Three, and this flick definitely deserves its slot.

Another note:  I know I’ve been recycling movie reviews a lot this month, so thanks for bearing with me.  Dr. Wife and I have been moving and taking care of all sorts of other tasks while we have some precious time off together, so the blog has—as it so often does—fallen onto the backburner.  She and I watched 1984’s Gremlins last week, however, so I’m looking forward to reviewing that soon.

But I digress.  With that, here is 30 January 2023’s “Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #3: The Thing (1982)“:

As we get into the final three of our picks, I find myself thankful that Ponty and I are doing an “Hono[u]rable Mentions” post, because this point is where it gets hard.  How do you pick the best three films?  Ten is hard enough, but there’s some margin for error.

That said, I know my #2 and #1 picks.  But #3 was giving me a time, until Ponty mentioned this film in one of his comments.

John Carpenter is my favorite director, up there with Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, and similar directors.  These are the guys that have a distinct style, even when making films in vastly different genres.  That uniqueness of directorial tone seems to be fading in Hollywood, in favor of homogenized, corporatized sameness.  That’s not an entirely fair assessment, but I have a sense that the phenomenon of the “director-as-artist” is fading.

What sets Carpenter apart for me is not just his uniqueness; his movies are fun.  They’re not dumb fun, either (for the most part)—his shots are deliberate, and make sense for whatever scene he is shooting.  He is a strong visual storyteller, in addition to being a great composer and musician.  There’s a reason his films will appear twice in my top three.

This picture is arguably his best, but for personal and sentimental reasons I’m putting another of his films higher.  That said, Carpenter’s 1982 remake of The Thing is a masterpiece of tension, horror, and suspense.

The film opens with a dog running across the wastes of Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter in hot pursuit.  Why are they chasing a dog across Antarctica?  Why are they so intent on killing it?

Immediately, we’re thrown into a bizarre mystery—as are the characters.  They have about as much information as we do, and they struggle to understand what is happening around them.  They shoot one of the Norwegians and take in the dog, and then terrible things (no pun intended) start to occur.  The escaped dog absorbs the other dogs into itself, and the American scientists quickly realize that something is wrong.

What is wrong is that they have encountered an extraterrestrial organism that can perfectly replicate the DNA of any other organism, taking on its appearance.  They soon realize that any one of them could be The Thing, and suspicion and doubt set in.

Rather than rehash the entire plot—which would ruin much of the suspense and fun—I’ll focus on what makes this film so incredible.

Firstly, the setting is perfection—it’s Antarctica in the winter.  The very atmosphere is dangerous and isolated.  The weather itself becomes a threat and an unlikely ally, as the extreme cold is a danger to our heroes, but also might explain how The Thing has laid dormant for so long.  You can feel the cold as you watch this movie, and I find it makes for great viewing on a dark, wintry night.

Secondly, the cast is incredible.  I’m a sucker for Kurt Russell, a perennial actor in Carpenter’s films.  Russell here portrays R.J. MacReady, a helicopter pilot, but for our purposes, we might as well think of him as Kurt Russell—he’s playing the kind of character he tends to play.  Anyone who has seen the flick will remember the famous computer chess scene:

That one scene tells the viewer everything he needs to know about the character.  It’s the only example I can think of in which cutting the proverbial Gordian Knot involves dumping Scotch into a chess computer.

That computer is also the closest thing to a “female” character in the entire film.  There are no women in this movie, which apparently made the production much easier, as none of the male cast members were trying to show off in front of the babes (it’s interesting how that dynamic never really changes, even among adult men).  It doesn’t matter much otherwise, but it’s clear that there’s no romantic subplot or the like—it’s all about a group of increasingly contentious men struggling for survival.

Thirdly, the creature effects make this flick worthwhile.  At the time, they were considered too gory, and they still hold up.  The head of one of the team members turning into a spider-Thing is particularly chilling, and demonstrates just how dangerous The Thing is (warning for those with sensitive stomachs—it’s a gruesome scene):

That clip also features the defibrillator paddles descending into a belly-turned-mouth—truly horrifying stuff.  The ever-shifting nature of The Thing makes it a source of constant terror.  It becomes virtually impossible to kill.

The Thing was a flop upon release, but has since become a cult classic.  I think it deserves better than mere cult status—it’s a cinematic masterpiece.  While it’s ostensibly about an alien menace, it’s really an exploration of paranoia, fear, and hopelessness in a desperate situation and environment.

It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s a must-see.