By: Jason Barwick
The Thing is not only one of my favorite horror movies but also one of my favorite movies of any genre. This movie focuses on a team of scientists who are confronted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of the people that it kills. This is one of the first horror movies that I remember watching and is a must-watch every time I come across it on TV.
The main hero of the movie is R.J. MacReady, played by Kurt Russell, who has to not only battle the alien but also his own fear and uncertainty about which one of his friends is the alien pretending to be. Whenever I think about this movie, two things immediately come to mind. First, the scene where Vance Norris', played by Charles Hallahan, chest opens up and bites off the doctors hands and then his head comes off and turns into that freaky head-spider thingy. That is one of the craziest things I have ever seen!
The second thing is the almost overwhelming sense of fear and paranoia that the group in the movie as well as the viewers feel. The director, John Carpenter, does a masterful job of making you feel uneasy throughout the entire film. The only person that you never really have doubts about is MacReady but you are made to doubt the true identity of every other character over the course of the movie. Even sweet ole Wilford Brimley makes us nervous as the team tries to figure out if he is the alien. In my opinion, this is one of the best horror movies of all time.
From the music that kept you feeling uneasy to the actors looking truly freaked out at the things they were seeing, this movie is as close to perfect as any horror movie has ever gotten. It was the first movie I thought of when I started making my top ten list and it is a must-see for all horror fans.
Would The Thing make your Top Ten?