John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) is a sci-fi horror based on a short story, Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell Jr that was published at the height of eldritch horror serialisations in the 1930s. Not to be confused with 1951’s film The Thing from Another World, Carpenter’s rendition has since become a cult classic from the VHS generation that can still be considered visceral nightmare fuel.

On its release, The Thing had some stiff competition in cinemas, going head-to-head with both E.T. and Blade Runner. It didn’t do well at the box office, despite impressing critics with its practical effects, it was perhaps a bit too much of a shock for audiences not used to such repugnant and bloody creatures at that point in cinema’s history. For the faint of heart, a search online for “The Thing board game miniatures” will give you a safe, plain-grey-plastic idea of the sort of monstrosities featured in the film.

The premise may sound familiar, given how many stories have riffed on those old Lovecraftian-era originals, but The Thing offers a level of bleak fatalism not often found in Hollywood movies. The film focuses on an isolated US Research base in Antarctica who unwittingly invite an aggressive, ancient alien into their camp and the ensuing decimation of everything and everyone. This is the one film where rescuing the cute doggo is absolutely the wrong decision.

The inhabitants descend into a paranoid turmoil as the virus-like alien consumes and then becomes their colleagues, hiding in plain sight as it tries to escape into the wider world. Kurt Russell’s ‘Mac’ MacReady is the camp’s helicopter pilot and only realistic way out. Not knowing who to trust – or who is still human – Mac refuses to evacuate anyone until they can be sure they aren’t giving The Thing a free ride too. 

The film swings from dense silence laden with tension, to high-stakes frenetic action throughout. The close, cramped environment adds to the fear as there is only a limited amount of hospitable space to run to, which is systematically eliminated as the film goes on. The sound design and practical effects are stand-out elements that make The Thing a horror classic ahead of its time.

Not only does The Thing continue to stand up after forty-three years but it offers something to new audiences in our current climate crisis. As the ice melts, the concerns of paleovirology are becoming more relevant and more realistic. While it represents an unlikely extreme, The Thing is perhaps not as far-fetched as it was at its inception. That a functionally extinct virus frozen for millennia could devastate the contemporary population is just one more fear to live with for modern audiences, and The Thing taps into that with unnerving prescience.

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