"Somebody in this camp ain't what he appears to be."

Moving on from Wes Craven as well as slashers in this blog, I want to discuss John Carpenter's The Thing.  Although Carpenter is probably best known for his film Halloween I am of the opinion that The Thing is his real masterpiece.  The film is actually a remake of 1951's The Thing from Another World, but it is considered a more faithful adaptation of the story Who Goes There? by Howard Hawks-Christian Nyby, which both of the films are based on. 

The film's plot revolves around a group of scientific reasearchers in Anarctica who are terrorized by a shapeshifting alien being.  Rather than point out facts about the film I'd rather discuss the impact and finer mechanics of horror on display.  At the time of the movie's release another little movie made it somewhat unpopular.  That movie is now known as the classic E.T.  Spielberg's E.T. presented a loveable, even adorable alien creature to the American audience, which soured them on the idea of a blood thirsty, not so adorable alien which wasn't too keen on making friends with humans.  While E.T. has definately lived on as a classic to this day, The Thing did something even more impressive, it manged to transcend into a cult classic among horror films and is actually considered to still be pretty scary, which is saying alot for a film that came out in 1982.  I myself am one that considers this movie to be scary where other movies of  the decade have faded into campy genre films.  In my opinion the main draw of the film is not the creature effects, which are definately there courtesy of Rob Bottin and Stan Winston.  Instead the movie draws me in for repeated viewings because of the gloomy story and slow burn set up.  While other creature films would simply be happy to jump right into kill scenes and keep things going at breakneck speed The Thing actually works up to these scenes, but never keeps a steady pace.  This technique leads to some great tension-built scares because the trick is simple, if you keep the audience waiting for just long enough they'll begin to put the monster in the back of their head and that is the perfect time to strike.  I would describe some of my favorite scare moments, but I do not wish to ruin the film for those who have not seen it. 

The aspects that make The Thing as good as it is are the same aspects that make any classic horror film great.  The darkness becomes a scary place to be, no one can be trusted, and most importantly the audience is kept captivated in their want to know more.  I personally saw the movie when I was fourteen years old and my young teenage mind was blown away simply by the idea.  I had seen alien movies before, most notably Ridley Scott's Alien, but the idea of a creature that could look like anyone and strike when one was at their most vulnerable struck me as brilliant.  At that age I wasn't completely aware of my dream job of writing for Fangoria magazine, but every time I look towards the future I find myself hoping that one day I will be able to write for a movie which is just as good, and even more unlikely, better.  The Thing is the kind of film that gets stuck in your brain and scenes play again and again giving horror fans such as myself new appreciation each time they watch it.  From the subtle growl of sled dogs to the frantic screams of men fighting to avoid their own destruction, the film is just down right scary in the message it delivers, which is there will always be new threats to our very existence and one day we might not be able to overcome that threat.