The Slasher Movie Encyclopedia – The Thing
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals. Since it’s the holidays, the Hall of Burly has chosen a film that shows us you never know who has the Christmas spirit…..and an awesome giant hat.
We open up in Antarctica with two dudes in a helicopter chasing down a dog, trying in vain to shoot it. I mean, the dude with the gun is just the worst. It’s then soon revealed that they have grenades on board, but they don’t feel the need to use them until they’re AT the other research station. OK, did the Thing not bother cloning them because they’re the STUPIDEST SCIENTISTS ON EARTH?
Seriously, where’s the scene where these two guys are maping out their plan?
Scentist Guy 1: OK, we gotta get the creature before it gets to anyone else! Scentist Guy 2: Agreed. We’ve got an AR-15, and a box full of grenades. What I think we should do, is chase after the dog in a helicopter while I lean out the side of it and shoot blindly! I mean, if I know guns like I think I do, the easiest target to hit is one that’s moving quickly while you’re also moving quickly, on a shaky surface.
Scientist Guy 1: Why don’t we just fly over the top of him, a little in front, and drop like 3 grenades instead?
Scientist Guy 2: Oh, I’m sorry, Larry, are YOU the one who got honorable mention in the clay-pigeon shooting regionals!? Is that you? Are YOU the Norwegian Duck Hunt champion of 1982 as recognized by Super Sven’s Arcade?! No. No you aren’t. Also, cause then I won’t get to look cool as shit hanging from a huey while I dump clips, man! Don’t worry, once we’re around other people, and property, THAT’S when we’ll break out the explosives! Oh, and don’t forget, they’re just GRENADES, so if by chance one lands some where it shouldn’t be, just take your super-sweet time trying to get to it. And nothing bad will happen.
Seriously, they land at this station, where all the guys come out to see what’s going on, and these assholes just start throwing explosives! But the dude chucking grenades accidentally throws it behind him, AT THE HELICOPTER, and just shrugs it off, continuing on his marry way, shooting the fuck out of everything, while the other guy waits about 30 seconds and decides to go digging for the grenade. I mean, good news/bad news on that one, cause he found it.
Kurt Russel is our lead, MacReady. He’s the man because he has the world’s biggest cowboy hat.
It’s so big I’m pretty sure that the Thing could assimilate it. So, him, his cowboy hat, and two others head to the station that these two dudes came from. They get there to find it blown to hell, with giant holes all over the inside. No shock there, I’m sure the dude from the beginning was all
Scientist Guy 2: I’ll handle this! Quickly, someone get me a bottle of booze and a blind fold, I’m gonna get plenty drunk, put the blind fold on, then spin in a circle while I fire this blunderbuss! Can’t lose!
They discover a body of twisted, gnarly looking flesh, and bring it back to the other station. Once there, they perform an autopsy on it. In the meantime, the dog gets put with the other dogs, where it starts to mutate, and part of it escapes, while the other remaining part gets torched with a sweet flame thrower. The doc is able to deduce what the creature is doing, assimilating. I dunno how he figured that out, but there ya go.
Going through footage from the previous crew that they recorded, they see that they discovered something about 5 miles east of their station. So, MacReady, MacReady’s hat, and two other dudes are going to that very place, and discover it’s a spaceship. They literally walk up to the OPEN HATCH of the space ship, and are all “Huh…neat, welp, back to the station!”, as if this is an everyday occurrence. They don’t even peak inside!
There’s a dude named Childs, played by bossplayer Keith David, and he ain’t having any of this. Sure, he may have seen it with his own two eyes, with pounds of concrete proof, but he’s still like “if tangible, 100% concrete proof is the kind of stuff you go for, whatever, I need a little more than that”. The doc has figured out how quickly things will go to shitsville if the alien reaches civilization, and it ain’t good. So, he straps up, because there’s a big chance that crew members have been infected as well. Seriously, why on Earth is this place so loaded with arms? I dunno, I’m thinking the last thing we need in an area were people go “stir crazy”, is a lot of shotguns and flame throwers. Call me crazy.
Later on, MacReady shows that he’s a man’s man, because even though some major scary, major awful shit is going down, all he cares about is getting drunk. One guy pulls him aside to share some grim, very serious news, and the whole time MacReady is yelling about wanting to go get drunk instead. Awesome.
Bennet, one of the crew, he gets caught, and gets set ablaze. Meanwhile, Blair, the doctor, starts trashing all the comm and all travel, so it can’t get out. I mean, I get what he’s doing, noble, but there might be a better way than taking an axe to everything. They get him to relax, then throw him in a shed.
They check on him later to ask him if he’s seen a missing crew member, and there’s a freaking noose hanging near him, as he asks to come back inside. And no one makes mention of it. At all. Where’s that scene?
Windows: Uh, should we be worried about the fact he fashioned a noose, and it’s hanging right next to him? Next to the guy who may have just gone crazy? MacReady: Dude, people use nooses for all sorts of things….it could be auto-erotic jacking off. Windows: Pretty sure that’s not what it’s called… MacReady: Well, you were right about Steve. I was wrong, we didn’t just walk in on him polishing his shotgun barrel with his mouth like I thought….
Back inside, the crew thinks MacReady is a thing, which results in a struggle that sees one of them go down with a heart attack. What comes next is one of the coolest things ever, as when one of the crew is performing CPR, he starts using the defib paddles, the dead dude’s torso opens up, chomping the arms off in one hell of a scene.
He then turns into a spider-head, while MacReady is blazing everything with a flame thrower. 
Eventually they tie everyone down, and do the blood test, to find out who’s infected. They take a hot copper wire, and dip into blood samples. If it’s infected, it’ll react. OK, we earned that even a drop of blood can contain the cell, so the second one of the batches of blood is bad, MaCready is like “Ahh! Throw the dangerous blood all over the fucking place!”. Then when one of the infected turns into a monster, MacReady flames on and that said creature is all a blaze and dumps itself into the snow, MacReady throws dynamite on it like “Ahh! Throw the dangerous blood and body parts all over the place!”. I mean, he’s my man, but c’mon. Put his hat in charge.
They go out to find Blair and test his blood, and learn that he’s been building a space ship? In a giant ice cave he carved out? He did this in a day? Well, while they’re checking out Blair’s sweet alien-man-cave, he’s gone into the building and blown up the generator. He just wants to go back to sleep in the ice until the rescue team comes. Well, MacReady, and 3 other remaining members decide to piss in the Thing’s Wheaties, and kill him once and for all. Childs vanishes, and the remaining two are quickly disposed of as Blairthing works his magic. Once all the dynamite is set, with the longest burning fuses EVER, the Thing reveals himself in a massive site, as MacReady feeds him a stick of dynamite, as the remaining places blows to hell. 
As MacReady finds a spot to sit and take it all in, Childs shows up. Both sit, sharing a bottle of booze, waiting for either one to make a move….
Official Slasher Movie Encyclopedia Tally:
Killed:5
Swear: 10
Boobs: 0
Foot Chases: 3
Fake-Out Scares [ie, a cat]: 2
Car Stalling: No
Instances of Drugs/Drinking/Sex: Yes
Warned But No Belief: Yes
Things You Need To Know In Order To Survive:
The voice of Macready’s Chess machine is none other than star of the Fog, and Carpenter’s then-wife, Adrienne Barbeau.
Carpenter said this is his personal favorite of his films, and was really bothored by how much of a bomb it was both critically and finacially.
It took around 50 people to operate Blair-Thing at the end.
Rob Bottin was in his early 20’s when he created these effects.
Although Carpenter had wanted to make a sequel for some time, it’s never got off the ground. However, there was a run of comic books by Dark Horse, entitled The Thing From Another World.
The destroyed base at the beginning is actually the destroyed American base. Instead of building a new one, Carpenter just filmed these scenes after they’d destroyed the building.
Final Rating:
It’s the Thing, what am I going to say about it that hasn’t already been said? It’s fantastic, and a lot of fun. The performances are great, the effects are scene stealing [except for when Windows is being trashed around by his head], the tension & mystery built perfectly, and MacReady’s hat is so giant and awesome. ****1/2 Head-Butts Out Of 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySvzHdtCiWE
Str8 Gangster, No Chaser 