I'm not going to commit to declaring the movie I'm going to tell you about as Carpenter's best, but I'd put it in his top three, maybe.
This week's Thursday Thriller is The Thing.
Kurt Russell stars in this 1982 remake of Howard Hawks's The Thing From Another World. Russell plays MacReady, a helicopter pilot attached to a U.S. government research mission in Antarctica. MacReady isn't as flamboyant as other Carpenter/Russell characters like Snake Plissken or Jack Burton, but he's still the kind of guy who'll dump his whisky into the computer that beats him at chess.
Wilford Brimley, whom you may know from "diabeetus", plays the staff medic Dr. Blair.
MacReady, Blair and company find themselves in a spot when a researcher from a similar, Norwegian research facility flies over their camp in his helicopter, firing his rifle at them, then crashing his chopper.
Then the dogs start to act funny. You always know something is up when the dogs are upset. One of them explodes in a splatter of blood, slime and wriggling tentacles. Eventually Blair figures out they're dealing with an alien life form that consumes and imitates its prey one-by-one, taking over the prey's form. His calculations suggest there's a 75 percent chance one of the crew has been infected, and if the life form makes it back to civilization, humanity's days are numbered.
So of course Blair destroys the helicopter and much of the communications gear. After that, it's time for everyone's favorite game, "Which one of us is the monster? (I know it's not me.)"
What I love about this movie is it aims both high and low. Rob Bottin created masterfully gory effects the like of which had not been seen before 1982. They really punch you in the gut, while the suspense of not knowing which crew member is the creature works your psyche.
The Thing streams on Starz.
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