One of my favorite monster movies The Thing by John Carpenter is a remake of the 1951 film with the same name. The basic plot is that a group of people stationed at an Antarctic research base come in contact with a faceless, nameless alien. It acts as a virus and disguises itself as the prey in which it killed. What I find so interesting and terrifying about this creature is that it poses itself as the creatures it has killed. Isolated from rest of civilization, the group does not know who amongst them is still human and who has become part of the creature.
What this film does brilliantly is play upon the fears we have of trusting one another, do we ever truly know someone? The group begins to grow paranoid and communication becomes more and more hostile. The once friendly group is now ready to point a finger at any one of the other members that they may have turned into the Thing. It is an omnipresent creature that plays upon our fear of the unknown. This film at it's core depicts what happens when fear takes hold of us and shows the way we treat each other when we are not sure if we can trust anyone. This film shows communication between the team of researchers as a vital tool for survival. They must communicate with each other to stay calm and calculate what they must do to survive.
I highly recommend this film to anyone who hasn't seen it, it is pretty freaky but if you like horror it is definitely worth checking out. It's from the 80s but I will say right now I think the puppetry/animatronics in this look way cooler than any cg used in modern day horror. It is absolutely crazy. This film is horror on multiple levels, it is quite psychological in playing upon our fears of trust and isolation while at the same time being one crazy monster movie.
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That is a very interesting perspective on "The Thing." I would never have thought to really look into that film as much as you did. I can definitely see where you are coming from though. There are a lot of underlying messages rather than just the horror aspect. It is definitely a fun thing to do to really break down a film and see different meanings it has. Most of the time it takes a few viewings to really break it down, because when people watch a movie for the first time, it tends to just be for entertainment. They have a more passive approach to it. When they realize they like the film that is when they start to watch it more to break it down. Some of my favorite movies which I have seen many times, I can still watch them and find new things about them.
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