1. The Thing (1982) (Dir. John Carpenter)
After the shapeshifting alien known only as “The Thing” infiltrates an Antarctic research station and reduces it to nothing, killing the scientists and turning them against one another, the two remaining survivors – J.R. MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Childs (Keith David) – regroup outside. Weary, tired and no longer giving a shit about anything, the pair sit and try to work out which one of them (if any) is “The Thing.”
As they try to get a grip on this – the inhospitable base flaming behind them – both men decide that they’ll never really know the answer. Instead, MacReady, shivering in the icy wind, says: “If we’ve got any surprises for each other, I don’t think we’re in much shape to do anything about it.” “What do we do?” Childs asks. “Why don’t we just… wait here for a little while?” McReady suggests. “See what happens.”
Childs lets out a little laugh, and the two men sit broken and exhausted opposite one another, eventually offering up a couple of delirious grins. At that point, Ennio Morricone’s brilliantly paranoid score eases in, as director John Carpenter cuts to a far-away shot of the station, leaving us, the audience, in exactly the same position as our remaining characters: inching to know what happens. The best bit, of course, is that we never really know, but Carpenter assures an ending that is both appropriate, tense and completely right for a story about mistaken identities. What’s more, “The Thing” might actually be dead… but how will these men ever learn to trust each other after everything that’s happened?
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