The Thing (1982)
The Plot
You just can’t beat the opening sequence of John Carpenter’s The Thing. A sparse, ominous soundtrack plays over images of stark snowfields; in time we make out a dog running through the deep snow, pursued by two men in a helicopter doing everything they can to gun it down. This bizarre chain of events slowly leads into the movie’s central plot: in the remote wastes of Antarctica, a team of researchers uncovers a strange artifact buried deep in a glacier, and extract a frozen thing from within it. The characters quickly discover that the organism has the ability to mimic organic life, rapidly and without flaw—and that it is replicating, absorbing and converting them one by one with the sole intent of reaching the mainland.
The Breakdown
Listen, if it isn’t clear by now, I absolutely adore practical effects; and quite simply, The Thing can’t be beat. They’re so strange and horrific they become downright fascinating, without losing their grotesque impact even after multiple viewings. They really are a work of art, and the movie would be worth watching for no other reason than to appreciate them; but its aura of paranoia and slowly escalating terror stretches the tension out until it snaps, time and time again. On top of that, The Thing makes expert use of its setting, trapping the characters inside their frozen base with no contact with the outside world, no help, and no escape
The Scare Factor
What the thing does to people is genuinely horrific, and we experience it in gruesome detail; on top of that the atmosphere is positively unrelenting. It also has one of my all-time favorite endings out of any horror movie I’ve seen; you can’t beat it in terms of pure grim manly panache. Great action, great horror, and all around a great time.