When I was first thinking about this month’s theme – Frozen in January – it was John Carpenter’s The Thing that came to mind. It is the perfect encapsulation of what I was going for. Its characters are trapped in an isolated place covered in snow and ice. An external force causes an already tense situation into turmoil. The weather and the cold, frozen setting aren’t just window dressing, they help inform the story. I actually didn’t love the movie the first time I watched it, but with each subsequent viewing, I like it more and more. Now I think it is just about perfect.

The Thing is based upon a novella by John W. Campbell entitled Who Goes There?. It was previously adapted into the pretty great film in 1951, The Thing From Another World. 

Set in an American research station in Antarctica The Thing stars Kurt Russell (and Wilford Brimley, and Keith David, and T.K. Carter and others, it really is a great cast) as a group of men who are already pushed beyond their limits. The isolation and the freezing weather are getting to them.

This is why, when a helicopter from the Norwegian station flies in shooting at some dog, and then at our heroes, they don’t initially think something is really wrong. They just chalk it up to those guys going stir-crazy.

I’ve seen this movie several times and I always forget how long it takes to get to the scenes I remember. The scenes in which the shape-shifting alien starts wiping everybody out. But before that, there are long, tension-building scenes, in which they try to figure out what’s going on at the Norwegian base. You’d think I’d remember them finding an alien spacecraft but I never do.

I think that is a testament to just how incredible the back half of this movie is. One of the many things I love about The Thing is that, unlike most of the films I’ve watched in this series, it really uses the freezing, isolated setting to help build the tension. As things ratchet up with the alien, we fully understand how there is no escape. Nowhere to go. No one will come to their rescue.

The alien is a shape-shifter so it can look like any one of them. No one knows who is human or something else. Carpenter makes us feel every moment of that horror.

The practical effects do look a bit unreal. I think that’s a big part of what I didn’t like about it on my first watch. They aren’t natural or realistic looking and that can take you out of the moment. Now I find that part of the film’s charm. The alien isn’t supposed to look real, not when it’s shifting into a chest cavity that can chop your hands off. It is supposed to look, well, alien. And cool. They look so cool. I’d love to see a behind-the-scenes look at how they made them.

John Carpenter really was a master of horror for so many years. The more I watch his classic films (and I’ve seen most of them several times) the more I think he’s one of the best who ever did it.