My Thoughts on The Thing

The Thing is a movie written by Bill Lancaster and directed by John Carpenter and was made in 1982. The Thing reflects concerns about communism and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War through a metaphor of a shapeshifting alien. The movie is set in an American scientific outpost in the Antarctic, that is infiltrated by an alien which can shapeshift and perfectly imitate whatever it shapeshifts into. The danger of this alien is considered as world-ending as catastrophe would occur if it got into a larger population. The movie ends with an ominous note leaving two people alive, McReady and Childs. At the end of the movie neither of them, nor the audience know who is human and who isn't. In an interview with John Carpenter from the Guardian, he says, “They wanted to know who the Thing was – which was left up in the air. They hated that but I don’t care, that’s the way I wanted to end it.”(The Guardian). John Carpenter's intent was to show both the terrifying nature of an alien presence which could perfectly infiltrate, but also to show the descent of man into savagery through fear and breaking of trust. The ending perfectly encapsulates this, as both McReady and Childs, the survivors, decide to trust each other. They do this by not killing each other with the flamethrowers, despite the risk that one or both of them could be aliens. This conclusion is reached at the end of the insanity, which left the base and all other members dead. This scene can be interpreted as either a quiet surrender, or a melancholy triumph. John Carpenter uses the story of The Thing as a metaphor for the political state of the United States during the Cold War. The premise perfectly imitates the idea of McCarthyism and the push for paranoia by political figures in America during the time: “American leaders repeatedly told the public that they should be fearful of subversive Communist influence in their lives. Communists could be lurking anywhere”(Miller Center). The ingenuity of John Carpenter when shooting the film allows the audience to take their own standpoint and join in on the fearmongering and paranoia by explicitly choosing not to follow one character for the full movie. The ambiguous ending suggests two ways of interpretation for the end of the Cold War. One interpretation alludes to the complete defeat of one side, where either the U.S.S.R. or the United States remain dominant, while the other is destroyed. The other interpretation is a slow dying of one country or the other. This end shows a lack of compromise, the complete dominance of one view or the slow eradication of the other and the impossibility of a truce, alliance, or understanding between the two forces. The breakdown of human connection into paranoia is displayed in the scene where McReady tests everybody's blood to see if they are alien or not. He threatens them with a flamethrower and forces them to both tie themselves down and comply with this test.

This deeply woven distrust or fear of his comrades which he had known for much time before this incident displays how quickly the fear and paranoia can ramp up. The viewer sees the disconnect between McReady and his compatriots through the empty space in between the standing and looming McReady and the bound and sitting crew. The extremes which McReady is willing to go through tie the situation back into McCarthyism. The whole ordeal is very high stakes, because to the crew the alien aggressor is a world ending threat if it gets out. The sentiment reflects how Americans saw the U.S.S.R. as such a great threat due to its nuclear power, contributing to the existence of the  Cold War. The constant need for superiority over and fear of the U.S.S.R.  parallels the humans belief that the alien would replace and kill them and their fight against it. Overall, John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is an analogy for the Cold War as a whole and shows the impact which the Cold War had on the mentality of the people of the United States.

Quotes/bibliography

Return to THE AGE OF EISENHOWER landing page. “McCarthyism and the Red Scare.” Miller Center, March 21, 2023. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/age-of-eisenhower/mcarthyism-red-scare.

“John Carpenter on Horror Classic the Thing: ‘It Was an Enormous Failure and I Got Fired.’” The Guardian, March 25, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/25/john-carpenter-kurt-russell-the-thing-horror-classic.