By Robert Scucci
| Published
Every once in a while, a classic horror film like John Carpenter’s The thing is making the streaming rounds and reminding us how ahead of its time it was in elevating such a simple story with next-level creature effects. Now that The thing is streaming in all its violent, nihilistic glory on Shudder, you can see for yourself how tense and nauseating it is.
From the Antarctic wilderness to the looming and ever-increasing sense of paranoia that arises from every sequence, you’d be hard-pressed to find a sci-fi horror film that will make you want to test the blood of everyone who lives in your house before you go to bed, just to be safe. Or, if you’re like me, your next viewing of The thing on Shudder may or may not get you reading Amazon flamethrower reviews.
Why it works
However The thing is anterior Predator After five years, both films have one thing in common that makes them superior to their contemporaries: it’s the sense of routine and camaraderie of an experienced crew who are disrupted by outside influences. stranger strengths. Kurt Russell’s RJ “Mac” MacReady has a relationship with the rest of the research team that effortlessly lets the audience know how much these guys generally trust each other and get along in any other circumstance before the events which take place in The thingNOW streaming on Frisson.
When an American team’s Antarctic research station is attacked by a Norwegian helicopter (they’re not Swedish, Mac!), Mac and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) decide to fly over the attacker’s station to see exactly what who triggered them. Their initial hypothesis is that the Norwegians were suffering from a case of isolation-induced cabin fever and, for unknown reasons, wanted to eliminate one of the many sled dogs living on the American base. It doesn’t take long for Mac and Dr. Copper to find a badly burned corpse that appears to be a human in a state of suspended mutation after being cremated by the Norwegian crew.
Searching for a logical explanation, Mac and Dr. Copper take the corpse back to their base of operations, along with the research the Norwegians compiled before things went wrong. Senior biologist Blair (A. Wilford Brimley) confirms that the corpse is human despite its deformities, but changes his mind when one of the station’s dogs violently mutates while locked in the kennel. The crew now knows that they are dealing with some kind of “Thing” that takes the form of its host in order to assimilate and eliminate any living thing that may harbor its DNA, and they shudder at the implications.
Although there are initially some doubts that it is an extraterrestrial life form, it is difficult for everyone to ignore the buried alien spacecraft that the Norwegians discovered before unleash.
A futile exercise
The thing presents a moral dilemma that must be resolved immediately. Blair, growing in his paranoia, makes the executive decision that the Thing’s contamination and assimilation efforts must remain isolated after predicting that whatever life form they are dealing with could take over the entire planet in just a few years if it is unleashed across the world. . He destroys the radios and sleds and kills the remaining dogs to ensure no one can escape.
Armed with flamethrowers and enough explosives to blow up the research station, the crew is almost certain they won’t survive the winter. When Bennings (Peter Maloney) and Norris (Charles Hallahan) become infected, the surviving crew’s paranoia takes over as they have no real way of knowing who else is infected by the Thing. Although Mac and Childs (Keith David) have more than enough reason not to trust each other at this point in the ordeal, they really have no choice but to pull together in their survival efforts.
Higher level creature effects
Emotional and existential troubles aside, The thing shocked everyone when it was released in 1982 because of how ahead of its time it was with its creature designs and stop-motion movements, which still hold up when you stream it on Shudder. Special effects designer Rob Bottin needed a budget of $1.5 million (one-tenth of the The thing entire production budget) and used a mixture of chemicals, food, rubber and mechanical parts to bring the eponymous Thing to life in its various grotesque permutations. If you see this one way or another John Carpenter classic for the first time in 2025, you may not believe you’re watching a 43-year-old film because of how well executed the practical effects are.
A certified cult classic
The thing is one of those creature features that actually benefits from displaying its monster on screen, and there’s no shortage of blood, ectoplasm, saliva, and bone to get that message across. As each mutation becomes more intense, the feeling of real the fear of its main cast, made all the more compelling by the freezing temperatures on set, which most likely kept adrenaline levels high during production, giving the film an air of authenticity that I didn’t seen so beautifully reproduced since.
You can broadcast The thing right away on Frissonand I highly recommend you do so the next time you want to watch the world burn. And if you want to explore The thing furthermore, the GenderVision the podcast does a great breakdown that you won’t want to miss.
