Helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russel, The Hateful Eight) and a crew of American researchers in the Antarctic are picked off one by one by a relentless parasitic alien creature – the eponymous Thing. Hunted by a lifeform that assumes a perfect likeness of its victims, the group are driven to the depths of paranoia and self-destruction as it becomes clear that no one among them can be trusted.
When it first launched in 1982, Carpenter’s The Thing received aggressively negative reviews, and was slated as “instant junk” by the New York Times. Nevertheless the film went on to become a sleeper hit, and is now universally appreciated as a masterpiece of technical skill and narrative subtlety, with fans to this day arguing over interpretations of the final scene.