Paranoia As Depicted In John Carpenter's The Thing

Watching movies is a great pastime. Whether it be an action adventure or a romantic comedy, it’s easy for people to sit down and enjoy one of their favorite films. However, there is a deeper perspective in the movies we watch daily. They can provide important life lessons or even advice on a situation. Movies can also have you question reality and drive you into creating serious motives. John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is a perfect example of that. To me, “The Thing” is one of my favorite movies, not only due of its unique story-telling and interesting characters, but also its profound message of paranoia. John Carpenter’s “The Thing” employs a solid narrative of trust among people and the structure of uncertainty among friends. “The Thing” …show more content…
What we see in the characters don’t make us fear for them; a tactic that the film uses constantly. Ever since the dog arrives, there are regular intervals in which the camera lingers around empty rooms with an insinuated purpose, which invokes just as much disorientation as it does paranoia; making it virtually impossible to decipher who is the actual thing in later scenes. This works on top of the film’s geographical metaphor in which the indistinguishable and repetitive environment that feels eerily all too familiar makes us empathize with the characters physical and psychological traumas. The beauty of “The Thing” is that it exemplifies how rich and enticing knowing very little can be to the benefit of the story. It’s a film in which you learn a lot with the characters through theorizing and contextualizing without the necessity of exposition or long-winded explanations that draw you away from the emotional impact it hits you with. For a film famous for its practical effects, they don’t dominate the narrative or overshadow the performances that carry the film’s overbearing tension. By the time you get to the conclusion, the haunting soundtrack drifts you into the credits