Why The Thing Is John Carpenter’s Best Movie (& Why Halloween Is A Close Second) – Screen Rant

John Carpenter is known for Halloween and The Thing, but which one is his best movie?

Although he doesnt have a 100% hit rate, churning out such stinkers as Ghosts of Mars and Escape from L.A., John Carpenter has enough masterpieces under his belt to be praised as one of the finest filmmakers ever to grace the horror genre with his visionary style. Hes also one of horror cinemas most influential directors, as almost everyone whos contributed to the genre counts at least one of his movies among their favorites.

RELATED:10 Claustrophobic Horror Movies To Watch If You Like The Thing

Carpenter made a lot of great scary movies, but arguably his two best are The Thing, an Arctic-set chiller in which a group of scientists dont know who to trust as they fend off a shapeshifting alien, and Halloween, an early slasher about Laurie Strodes struggle against the murderous Michael Myers.

The titular force of antagonism in The Thing is a shapeshifting alien that infiltrates an isolated Arctic outpost and begins taking some truly horrifying forms. It can even perfectly impersonate any one of the scientists populating the facility.

This plays on very real, universal human fears. Theres nothing more scary than being trapped with a bunch of people and not knowing if any of them can be trusted.

Like most slashers, Halloween has a final girl for a protagonist. Played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who hails from a dynasty of horror movie royalty, Laurie Strode is the quintessential horror movie protagonist.

She doesnt survive the movie on sheer luck alone, or by being rescued by an outside force. She survives on her own quick wits and fierce determination in the face of very real terror.

In the pre-CGI era in which The Thing was made, all of the titular alien villains shapeshifting was done practically. Special effects wiz Rob Bottin was just 22 years old when John Carpenter hired him to create the beautifully gruesome effects for the movie.

The legendary Stan Winston was also brought on board to help out with the iconic effect of the Thing integrating dogs into its disturbing form.

Setting the stage for such horror icons as Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and the Ghostface killer, Michael Myers is the perfect horror movie villain. A deranged killer since childhood, hes characterized as the faceless embodiment of evil.

RELATED:The Night He Came Home: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Halloween (1978)

Hes credited as The Shape, because hes inhuman. Hes a practically invincible killing machine clad in a boilersuit and a William Shatner mask, murdering his way through Haddonfields youth.

An essential component of any great horror movie is the setting, from the Bates Motel run by a psychotic mamas boy to the Nostromo where no one can hear you scream.

In The Thing, the isolated Arctic outpost where the characters are the only humans for miles of snowy wasteland is used to terrifying effect.

Much like Ridley Scotts Alien, another masterpiece of horror cinema that was released a year later, Halloween is perfectly paced. John Carpenter was in no rush to start killing off babysitters. The first major murder doesnt take place until the midpoint of the movie.

After that, the rate of the subsequent killings gets slower rather than faster, as is the case with lesser horror films. This creates more tension and build-up for each murder.

The idea of an ancient, intergalactic, indefinably otherworldly entity that has no regard for humanity coming to Earth and eviscerating a bunch of people without remorse is pure H.P. Lovecraft.

RELATED:Nobody Trusts Anybody Now: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The Thing

The Thing is Carpenters attempt at a Lovecraftian tale of cosmic horror, and he nails the theme of paranoia. The Red Scare allusions from the original tale translated beautifully to the Reagan era in which Carpenter remade it.

Most modern horror movies use excessive blood and gore in place of tension and suspense. Just last year, It: Chapter Two set a new record for the most fake blood ever used in a horror movie, and it didnt make it any scarier.

By contrast, Halloween and fellow 70s horror masterpieces like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are relatively bloodless. But its their sparing use of violence that gives the violence much more impact.

Throughout The Thing, the characters gradually lose their sanity. They dont know who they can trust and theyre being killed one by one, so they have to come to terms with their seemingly inevitable fate.

This mentality calls back to Agatha Christies And Then There Were None. Everyones a suspect and survival seems increasingly unlikely.

While Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho is widely regarded to be the first slasher movie, the modern slasher genre wasnt solidified until John Carpenter came along and made Halloween on a slim budget withyoung stars and a masked killer picking them off one by one.

From Friday the 13th to A Nightmare on Elm Street, every subsequent slasher owes a creative debt to Halloween. Carpenters low-budget masterpiece pioneered the genre and perfected it at the same time.

NEXT:Halloween (1978): 5 Ways It's The Greatest Slasher Ever Made (& Its 5 Closest Contenders)

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Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, and independent filmmaker, and he's good at at least two of those things. In addition to writing for Screen Rant and Comic Book Resources, covering everything from Scorsese to Spider-Man, Ben directs independent films and does standup comedy. He's currently in pre-production on his first feature film, Hunting Trip, and has been for a while because filmmaking is expensive. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema and BabbleTop.

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Why The Thing Is John Carpenter's Best Movie (& Why Halloween Is A Close Second) - Screen Rant

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero