If someone were to ask you to name a “science fiction horror” movie, it’s likely that you would respond with either Ridley Scott’s influential “Alien” or John Carpenter’s classic “The Thing”. Though the former is often credited as a defining example of its genre, they were both similarly considered critically divisive upon release. With Alien fairing far better at the box office too. Subsequent revaluations have since absolved the rather dubious critical discord directed at this cinematic touchstone, with one initial appraisal calling it an “empty bag of tricks whose production values and expensive trickery cannot disguise imaginative poverty”. Hard to believe considering its revered status among even casual film audiences. But audiences were far more receptive to Ridley Scott’s classic, generating over $100 million at the global box office. Which is impressive considering the movie’s production cost was a mere $11 million. The same sadly cannot be said for “The Thing”.

Despite its beleaguered rise from box office bomb to cult classic to its eventual ascension as one of horrors most prominent icons, “The Thing’s” initial failure to attract any positive response is potentially more baffling than the critical discordance of even “Alien”. You have to wonder how critics got it so wrong? How a film that has inspired such fervent public discourse, that to this day still speculates who was and wasn’t a Thing? How and when members of this Ill-fated research team were infected. Or whether they were infected at all! There are so few movies that generate such robust discussions on public forums, particularly 40 years after the fact! Critics were bluntly dismissive, calling it “nihilistic”, “junk” and most curious of all “boring”. Imagine calling “The Thing” boring?! You might be repulsed by the gratuitous effects or made to feel uncomfortable by the chlaustraphobic isolation and sense of claustered paranoia. But bored?

For me this masterpiece has been tarnished by the ignorance of these contemporary reviewers, that seemed to suffer from some kind of collective myopia. Reviews are ultimately all subjective. They may represent the views of specific conglomerates and you often suspect that their perceptions may have been influenced by financial coercion or personal prejudice. But for the most it is the critical view of one individual. But such mutual incompetence is rare considering the quality from which they are critiquing. But what upsets me most isn’t the erroneous appraisals, nor the fact that it has taken so many years for “The Thing” to receive the credit it deserves. But the devastating impact this film’s failure had on John Carpenter. In a 2008 interview Carpenter said this:

“I take every failure hard. The one I took the hardest was The Thing. My career would have been different if that had been a big hit … The movie was hated. Even by science-fiction fans. They thought that I had betrayed some kind of trust, and the piling on was insane. Even the original movie’s director, Christian Nyby, was dissing me.”

The world not only owes John Carpenter for directing the greatest remake of all time, but an emphatic apology for ever doubting his vision or natural talent. Sinews of its neck bursting like infectious postules. The head separating from the body, sprouting its own arachnid Though it was another extraterrestrial that has been blamed, the extraterrestrial. Greatest remake.