John Carpenter’s The Thing is one of the best horror movies ever made, hands down. It’s a sci-fi/horror set in the sub-zero temperatures of a remote Antarctic research station. When an alien force that can shape-shift gets lose in the compound, everyone is a suspect. Kurt Russell led an impressive all-male cast in this 1982 horror classic.
Carpenter’s tense, slow-build horror boasts some of the most gruesome and frightening special effects of any horror I’ve seen, past or present. The bleak landscape becomes another force acting against the human contingent, and thus another layer to the horror element of the film. Still another layer is the dynamic between the survivors, who all begin to suspect one another and can trust no one in what becomes a very individual struggle for survival. This is a classic horror (and one slated for a remake…eeek).