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For those who have already seen The Thing, the rest of the film needs no description. But this column is less for the initiated who have the movie committed to memory than it is for the skeptics. So without giving too much away, it’s safe to tell you that the film’s premise involves the alien’s tendency to procreate by assuming the form of whatever creature it touches. In other words, The Thing could copy your biology so well even your mother would think it was you, talking with your mouth full, elbows on the table and all. But rather than approach the subject as a corny third season Star Trek episode, Carpenter treats both his subject and his characters with extreme respect. This is not a cheesy slasher film; this is a deadly serious drama that does not pull punches with its content. The principals are grizzled, tired men who have already spent years isolated to the most hostile environment on earth, doing the thankless work of many a scientist before them. Loneliness, boredom and depression are par for the course when you’ve spent a dog year on the ice. But imagine being in a situation where you know what these men know – that there is a hostile being among you that can assume the identity of anyone at any time? Paranoia quickly runs rampant as longtime friends begin to distrust, dislike and then destroy one another in a feverish fight for life. There is no where to go, nobody to contact, and even if they could, help is days or even months away. It’s just you, your friends, the ice, and The Thing.

In this kind of situation, the cream usually rises to the top. Most of the characters – including the outpost commander - are reluctant to accept the truth of what’s happening to them. Early on, Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley) assumes charge, quickly coming to a series of chilling conclusions regarding their chances of stopping the creature. Brimley’s own background as a ranch hand allows him to bring equal parts House, M.D. and Hoss Cartwright to his role as the outpost’s gutsy, no nonsense doctor. But while the determined Blair might be the intellectual leader of the group, he’s hardly equipped to take the men into a fight. Getting down to business with a flamethrower and an ice pick falls into the unlikely hands of MacReady, the chopper pilot (Kurt Russell). Fresh off the set of Escape From New York, it is easy to imagine Russell channeling Snake Plissken, having traded in a soldier’s life for solitary time with a helicopter and a bottle of Jameson’s. Like Plissken, MacReady is thrust into his role reluctantly but this time our hero is not a snarling, antisocial scumbag with an eye patch. He’s a brooding, bearded loner with a head full of emotional baggage who quickly realizes that if anyone is going to get out of the ice alive, someone with tremendous survival instincts is going to have to take over. But it isn’t easy being a hero, for as MacReady himself points out; “trust is a hard thing to come by” in this situation. As The Thing continues to infiltrate their ranks, and takes steps to ensure its own survival, trust continues to break down and things begin to look like an every-man-for-himself situation. Eventually neither the audience nor the characters on screen are sure who has been compromised and who has not, making the whole concept of a hero somewhat obsolete.

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