There’s nothing like beginning the year at the end of the world. As Iowa City’s FilmScene prepares for its yearly showing with two screenings, how does John Carpenter’s cult classic, a film infamously received as off-putting during the Reagan era, land on our laps as we face our own rising tide of conservatism and real-world violence?
The Thing is frequently described as an apocalyptic film. Though sweeping comets may be replaced by bright flares, and dust is swapped out for frost, it is a tale about humanity’s end, without going beyond the perimeter of a research base.
In most reflections on the 1982 remake of Howard Hawks’ 1951 adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella (keep up), it is commonplace to mention just how commercially and critically unsuccessful The Thing was upon its release. Film scholar Heather Addison combs through several harsh critical reviews in her 2013 essay on the film, noting just how out-of-time John Carpenter’s treatise on paranoia and containment was, thanks to the soaring popularity of two unlikely figures: E.T. and Ronald Reagan.
“Essentially, The Thing was the wrong kind of film for the era of Reagan-style masculinity and optimism. Spielberg’s blockbuster E.T. sidesteps the issue of masculinity altogether and offers a warmhearted, inspiring tale of a benevolent, childlike alien. The Thing presents a model of masculinity incompatible with the “Reagan revolution.”
Four decades later, when Carpenter was reflecting on his 1992 film Memoirs of an Invisible Man, he showed a keen understanding of the factors that play into how a film is received, saying, “When you make a movie, you’re a prisoner of whatever’s around you at the moment you release. Whatever’s happening in this society, in the world, and what other movies are released.”
This isn’t to say The Thing is not masculine. In appealing to the original source material, Carpenter drops the love story Hawks employed, having an entirely male ensemble. Before the carnage, we see these guys play poker and pool, making the best out of a chilling environment. But Carpenter subverts the male fantasy from the get-go; hell, the film opens on the gun-toting hunt for Man’s Best Friend. If man can’t depend on his canine, nor his fellow man, who can he depend on?
Leading man MacReady (Kurt Russel), with his piercing blue eyes and snow-sprinkled beard, is just as electrifying to look at as a two-headed Thing. But Carpenter again plays with expectations, refusing to make MacReady a simple everyman hero. When the others begin casting doubt on his identity, unsure if he has been turned, MacReady, in an angry stupor masked as leading competence, shoots another crew member who attempts to overthrow his singular authority. Shortly thereafter, the team confirms the man he shot was not a Thing, and crew member Childs (Keith David) says, “So he was human. Which makes you a murderer, don’t it?” It’s an underrated moment in a film filled with bigger and bolder death scenes, but it’s tragic nonetheless.
By the end of the film, you’re stuck wondering if the two men left behind are still human. Carpenter, for a brief moment, shows us that MacReady’s humanity, amidst all the chaos and the fear, was lost before that.
So, where does this leave viewers in 2026, who have grown to love and admire the film for the spectacular doom-and-gloom gore fest that it is? With the ongoing peril faced by Minnesotans, we are well aware of how evil can embed itself within the snow, the terror of men imitating violent archetypes — in this case, cosplaying as Officers of the Law while attacking civilians. 2026, still nascent, is off to a harrowing start, one that resembles the end of humanity in many ways. This time around, maybe we could do better than our fallen film characters and foster deeper trust and loyalty with our neighbors, to work together against the Things that try to rip us apart.
Upcoming screenings
The Thing, FilmScene—The Chauncey, Wednesday & Friday, Jan. 21 & 23, 10 p.m.
