The Thing · reception & legacy

1982 · John Carpenter

How The Thing has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A notorious 1982 flop — savaged by critics as repellent nihilism and buried at the box office in the summer of E.T. — it's now routinely called one of the greatest horror films ever made, and the definitive Carpenter.

What's debated

The ambiguous final scene is the debate that never dies: fans have spent four decades arguing over who, if anyone, is still human — and Carpenter refuses to settle it.

Its footprint

The blood-test scene is a permanent fixture of horror culture, endlessly parodied and homaged, and Rob Bottin's practical creature effects remain the benchmark every 'practical vs. CGI' argument reaches for. Its DNA is all over everything from Stranger Things to countless games and creature features.

Where it stands

The textbook flop-to-classic rehabilitation story — a cult object that fully climbed into the canon, and a lock on any 'greatest horror movies' list.

★ Did you know? Ennio Morricone's brooding score — one of the rare times Carpenter didn't score his own film — was nominated for a Razzie for Worst Musical Score in 1982; the film is now considered a masterpiece and the Razzie a punchline.

Named by the director

Influences John Carpenter has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

The Thing from Another World (1951) — Carpenter openly revered the Hawks-produced original — he'd already put it on TV screens in Halloween — while saying his version would return to the source novella's shape-shifting premise.
Howard Hawks — Carpenter has repeatedly named Hawks as his favorite director and his ensemble-under-siege model, calling remaking a Hawks production both an homage and an act of nerve.