The Thing
★★★½Worth watchingIs The Thing worth watching? (No spoilers)
Still holds up as one of the greats. The practical body horror looks shockingly good, the jump scares are perfectly placed, and the paranoia never lets up. Great characters and mystery even without the gore. Absolutely worth watching.
⚠️ Spoiler warning: everything below the quick take, including the full review and ending explained, contains spoilers.
The Thing review
I was initially against watching The Thing, as so many older horror films rely on cheap jump scares and props that invoke laughter instead of fear from a modern lens.
However The Thing broke all of my expectations. With body horror that somehow still looked respectable, deliberately placed jump scares that made me yelp, and a sense of both dread and intrigue throughout the entirety of its runtime it easily still holds up as one of the greats.
In many ways it reminded me of Alien, but in Antartica instead of a space station. You have the scientists dissecting something they don't understand, and don't know to fear. The sense that anyone could be infected without us knowing, and a failure to have any legitimate test until it is too late. There is the main character who has a far stronger sense of survival, and a similar vibe throughout.
This isn't meant as a dig on The Thing, I don't think it in any way is derivative or a cheap copy, the opposite in fact. I think the fact it reminds me of another of my favorite horror films is both surprising and amazing.
The film is a rare horror film that is both intensely horror, while also having engaging characters, storylines, and mystery that would hold up even in a film without any of the gore.
Is The Thing scary?
Scare level: 3/5
Yes. Gross, intense practical-effects body horror (heads sprouting legs, bodies splitting open), a few great jump scares, and constant paranoia because anyone could be the monster. The blood test scene is one of the tensest in horror.
The Thing ending explained
MacReady and the last survivors blow up the Antarctic base to make sure the Thing can't escape and reach civilization, killing the final form of the creature with dynamite. Freezing in the ruins, MacReady sits alone until Childs, who went missing earlier, reappears.
Neither knows if the other is human. They share a bottle of whiskey, agree there's no point fighting, and wait to see what happens as the base burns. MacReady laughs, and the film ends.
The ending is intentionally ambiguous. Fans have debated for decades whether Childs (or MacReady) is the Thing, pointing to things like Childs's breath not fogging in the cold. Either way, both men will freeze to death before help comes, so if the Thing is there, it dies with them. The point is the paranoia: you can never really be sure.
Does The Thing have a post-credits scene?
No. The Thing (1982) has no mid-credits or post-credits scene.
Movies like The Thing
- Alien (1979) – a crew trapped with a creature in an isolated place
- Annihilation (2018) ★ – an alien that copies and mutates living things
- The Thing (2011) ★★★½ – the prequel showing the Norwegian camp
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) – aliens replacing people one by one