John Carpenter’s 1982 tour-de-force, “The Thing,” is arguably the best horror movie of the decade.  It paid little attention to the movie it ostensibly remakes, the standard, boilerplate, flying-saucer Saturday-matinee of “The Thing From Another World” (1951). It presumably paid greater attention to its real and far darker source material, “Who Goes There?,” John W. Campbell Jr.’s 1938 horror-sci-fi novella.

One of the things the movie’s fans still debate heatedly is its bleak ending — I think it goes beyond ambiguous to downright mysterious.  Viewers actually are given no certainty whatsoever about who or what are actually pictured onscreen in the film’s Antarctic setting, after a fiery climax for this gory, special-effects-heavy actioner.  (Only people who have seen the film know what I am talking about.)

My own interpretation is a little less popular than the others you hear about.  To conceal spoilers, I’m sharing it after the poster image below.  [IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE, STOP READING NOW!]

Continue reading My take on the ambiguous ending for John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” (Major spoilers.) →