Plot of The Thing

The plot of the science fiction film The Thing.

During the pre-credits sequence, we see a UFO hurtle towards Earth, followed by the title burning itself onto the screen. The following titlecard reads “Antarctica, Winter 1982.” A helicopter flies over a snowy mountain range. The passenger is apparently searching for something, which he soon spots- a snow dog running across the landscape. It spots the helicopter and runs. As the helicopter bears down upon and passes the dog several times, the passenger attempts to shoot it with an automatic rifle.

The dog eventually reaches United States National Science Institute Station 4. Most of the men are hanging out in the rec room. Anti-social helicopter pilot and Vietnam veteran R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) is in his private cabin, playing against a Chess Wizard computer, and pours his whiskey into its hard drive when it (apparently) unfairly wins.

The men respond to the helicopter circling overhead. Childs (Keith David) spots the “NORGE” written on the tail, which Doc Copper (Richard Dysart) interprets to mean it is a Norwegian helicopter. As the dog gets close to the station, the passenger tries to hit it with a grenade. The helicopter soon lands just as the dog reaches the station. It runs up to meteorologist Bennings (Peter Maloney) and nearly jumps on him. One of the Norwegians grabs up another grenade and pulls the pin, but accidentally drops it, blowing himself and the copter apart. The other Norwegian shouts to the men in Norwegian (but actually meaningless gibberish) and shoots wildly at the dog, accidentally hitting Bennings in the leg. As the dog runs off, the Norwegian doggedly pursues it before base captain Garry (Donald Mofffat) shoots his eye out from a window in the rec room. The helicopter wreck is quickly put out. Reserved dog-handler Clark (Richard Masur), the last to respond to the commotion, immediately goes to the dog.

Radio operator Windows (Thomas Waites) struggles to reach someone, which he hasn’t been able to for weeks. Pathologist Blair (Wilford Brimley) is insistent that someone be notified and what happened reported. Marijuana-addicted Palmer (David Clennon) regards the matter with a passive ignorance, while mess cook Nauls (T.K. Carter) is sarcastic. Scientist Fuchs (Joel Polis) reads over the recovered Norwegian’s notes, which state that their own station has been set up not far away, and there are far more than the two. Doc Copper insists on going to the station, and MacReady (often referred to as just Mac) flies him. No one bothers with the dog, which calmly roams the station at will. It is shown going into someone's room, which the unknown person reacts to.

The Norwegian base is nothing but a gutted wreck when Mac and Copper arrive. Judging by the amount of deep freeze, things have been this way for quite a while. They find what appear to be signs of a struggle, such as a bloody axe stuck in a door, and a dead body whose head is halfway decapitated and wrists are laid open. Some intact notes and videotapes seem promising, but what they find at the end is the most disturbing: a gigantic rectangular slab of ice, hollowed out in the center. It resembles some kind of grave. Outside lie several burned corpses, but one is malformed to a degree that is impossibly human. Mac and Copper take it back with them. It has apparently several sets of limbs, and two deformed faces sticking out of its head and neck area.

Autopsies are performed. The Norwegian is determined to be very sound of mind- no drugs or alcohol or any such influences. Fuchs examines some clothing remains, which appear to be ripped apart. Blair, upon opening up the creature, finds a set of normal human organs. How these are inside such an inhuman thing is unknown.

That night, the men are lounging about as they always do. Bennings jumps when the dog nudges his leg wound and has Clark put it into the pen with the other dogs. Clark does so and then leaves. The passive dogs suddenly come alive and agitated. The new dog’s head suddenly splits apart like a blooming flower, and insect-like legs and tentacles explode from its body. The other dogs desperately try to escape. Clark, disturbed by the dogs’ sudden alarm, returns and freaks out.

Mac, hearing the commotion, hits the alarm and the men converge upon the pen. By this time the creature has become a shapeless mass of flesh, with a dog head sticking out amongst the tentacles and legs. Mac repeatedly shoots the creature with a shotgun, but this does minimal damage, if any. Clark, normally passive, frantically tries to restrain Mac when he shoots one of the dogs which the creature has latched onto. The thing suddenly spouts giant claws and pulls itself to the ceiling. Childs finally arrives with the flamethrower and torches the creature just in time.

In the following autopsy, Blair opens the creature up and discovers something disturbing. He surmises that this creature, soon dubbed the Thing, has the ability to absorb other life forms and, given enough time, project itself as a perfect imitation of them. Blood samples are taken of the remaining dogs, during which Blair becomes suspicious of Clark, who came into contact with the dog the most.

The videotapes are viewed, in which it is seen that the Norwegians have found something incredibly large in the ice near their camp. Cartographer Norris (Charles Hallahan) translates the Norwegian’s notes to find the location on a map, and Mac, Norris and the Doc head up there. They find what appears to be the remains of the giant UFO seen in the pre-credits sequence, and not far from that, a hole in the ground, whose shape matches the hollowed block of ice at the abandoned station.

Back at the station, Childs is vehemently in denial, and Garry- along with the others- is simply skeptical. Mac is somewhat believing, but unsure. Blair offers no opinion. In a brief moment, Nauls complains about how someone has thrown a dirty shirt in the kitchen trash can. Blair, at his computer, creates an animated representation of the Thing’s assimilation process, and determines there to be a 75% chance one of the others is infected. He also calculates that if the Thing were allowed to reach civilization, it would take 25,000 hours before the entire world is infected. Blair’s expression and subsequent arming of himself shows he’s not about to let that happen.

Doc orders the remains to be locked up in the storeroom. Bennings and Windows move the corpses into the storeroom, and Bennings searches for some of his personals while Windows gets the keys from Garry. Fuchs talks Mac into a private conversation in the tractor, where he reveals that Blair is slowly losing it. From his notes, which Fuchs took, Blair clearly believes that the Thing is trying to take over Earth, and is smart enough to strike when only one person is around. He also states that the remains still have some live cells in them.

Windows returns to the storeroom to find Bennings’ shirt lying on a chair and covered in blood- and what’s left of the Thing attached to him. He immediately alerts everyone else, and they surround Bennings, who has managed to stumble outside but has not been completely assimilated; he has giant claws for hands and no voice. Mac dumps gasoline on him and burns him with a flare. Gerry is completely lost, unable to comprehend what the creature had done to his longtime friend. Mac, taking a leader stance, insists that all the corpses must be burned.

A sort of snow grave is dug with the tractor. The bodies are emptied into it, doused in gasoline, and torched. At this point Garry inquires as to the whereabouts of Blair, who has not been present at all, not even when the Bennings-thing was torched. As Mac returns to the base he sees someone at the helicopter, whom he suspects to be Blair. He goes to the helicopter to find that Blair has ripped the controls apart.

There is a gunshot inside. Mac runs in to find a very much deranged Blair in the radio room, tearing everything apart and holding everyone off with his gun. Childs checks out the other vehicles, and finds that not only has Blair destroyed all of them, he’s also hacked the other dogs apart. While destroying the radio and the rest of the room, Blair raves about how the Thing wants to be one of them so it can reach civilization and take over. The other men manage to subdue Blair, and the following day he is locked in the tool shed. He and Mac briefly talk, during which Blair says he doesn’t know who to trust. Before Mac leaves, Blair tells him insistently to keep an eye on Clark.

The others convene and make it clear that there’s absolutely no way out of the station now. Mac knows that they won’t survive until the rescue team comes in spring; someone is undoubtedly infected. Childs, the foil for Mac, questions how they would determine who’s who. Doc Copper proposes that a sample of everyone’s blood could be tested against the blood samples they have locked away. The group goes to the blood locker, which can only be opened with Garry’s keys. Copper and Fuchs go to the locker to find that the blood has been destroyed.

This immediately sets off confrontation between everyone. Mac attempts to be diplomatic, but fingers are quickly pointed. Windows nearly snaps and goes for one of the locked-up shotguns, causing Garry to pull his handgun on him. Windows turns everyone against Garry, whom no one particularly likes in any case. Garry knows this, and turns his command over to Norris, who refuses. There is a brief confrontation over this as well, and Mac appoints himself, which Childs does not take well to.

The blood samples, just for good measure, are torched. At this grouping, Mac proclaims that he knows he’s human, and that he logically knows some of the others must be human as well. The ultimate objective here is to find out who is human and who isn’t, and to keep the Thing from getting to everyone. A snowstorm that is soon approaching will confine them all to the base. He singles out Garry, Doc and Clark to be drugged with morphine and tied up in the rec room. He makes a recording of the condition for a record, noting that the Thing apparently must rip through one’s clothes to reach their skin when they assimilate them. He figures this out from the clothes Nauls was complaining about.

Mac talks to Fuchs about what precautions should be taken to prevent a Thing’s single cell from assimilating someone. When Mac leaves, the power goes out in the lab. Fuchs wanders in the dark briefly before seeing a shadowy form, which he follows outside with a flare. In the snow, he finds a torn-up patch of clothing with MacReady’s name on it.

Mac discovers that the power went out in the lab because a fuse was blown. Mac puts together search parties, but Palmer objects to going with Windows for no good reason, which sets off yet another fight. Mac, Windows, and Nauls check on Blair, who vehemently demands to be let back inside, insisting that there’s nothing wrong with him. While returning to the base, they discover Fuchs’ charred remains, apparently because he killed himself with the flare to avoid assimilation. Nauls and Mac head up to his shack, noticing that the lights are inexplicably on. Windows goes back to inform the others of Fuchs’ fate.

45 minutes later, Mac and Nauls have still not returned. A decisive Childs orders that all entrances be barricaded. Boards are nailed to every door. Norris spots a figure approaching in the snow- while apparently experiencing pain from a heart condition. Nauls comes inside and tells the others that he cut Mac loose. He found the patch of clothing Fuchs found, stuffed in a furnace. Everyone automatically assumes Mac has been assimilated. Mac appears at the door, and Childs decides to let him freeze outside, against Windows’ objections that he may still be human.

Mac breaks into the supply room and forces a standoff by holding a flare near a pack of TNT. Norris and Nauls attempt to subdue him, but Mac quickly gains the upper hand. Immediately after, Norris suffers a heart attack. He is quickly brought into the infirmary, while Mac berates Childs and the others for abandoning him. Clark surreptitiously procures a scalpel. Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, but the pads punch through Norris’ chest and expose a set of gigantic teeth, which bite Copper’s arms off. A creature with Norris’ head pops out of the gaping hole. Mac torches the body, and the head detaches itself, attempting to get away before Palmer spots it and Mac torches that too.

Mac orders everyone tied up in the rec room. Clark, trying to blindside Mac, pretends to go along with him, while Childs adamantly refuses to be tied down. Mac threatens him with his pistol. Clark tries to attack with the scalpel, but Mac reacts quickly and shoots Clark in the forehead. Palmer and Windows tie everyone down, including the bodies of Doc and Clark. Windows ties Palmer up last. Of the group, only Mac, Childs, Nauls, Garry, Windows, and Palmer remain.

While stripping some copper wire of its sheath, Mac introduces his theory for a test: from seeing Norris’ reaction, he figures that since a single cell of a Thing is enough to assimilate someone, each cell must be a living thing in itself. That means it can feel pain anywhere, even in its blood, which a man would never react to, since his blood is nothing but tissue. If blood reacts, that person must be a Thing. Mac heats some copper wire and sticks it into blood samples from everyone.

First comes Windows, since he is untied. The hot wire simply evaporates the blood, just as it should be with a human. Mac then proves “what he already knows,” which is that he is human; Childs doggedly disregards this. He then tests the Doc and Clark. The tests are not going well for Mac; so far, everyone is human, and Childs attests that since Clark is human, Mac has murdered him, though Clark was trying to kill Mac. When Mac tests Palmer, however, his blood reacts- and so does Palmer. Mac’s flame thrower malfunctions, and Windows gets attacked. Palmer’s head splits in half and latches onto Windows’ head, swinging him about before throwing him away. Mac manages to get his flame thrower working and torches Palmer, who stumbles about and smashes through a wall to the outside. Mac follows him and blows him apart with a stick of dynamite. Windows, now infected, stirs; Mac torches him as well.

The final three tests- Nauls, Childs, and Garry- all show them to be human. Childs is left to guard the main station, while Mac, Nauls and Garry head out to test Blair. Mac tells Childs to torch Blair if he returns alone. The three head to the tool shed to find the door open, and no sign of Blair. They discover a secret passage under some floorboards, which lead to an underground workshop. Inside is a near-finished spaceship, cobbled together from the remains of the vehicles.

The three decide to destroy the ship. Nauls, watching the station, sees Childs go outside after something, and soon after the main power in the station goes out. Mac realizes that the temperature will soon drop to subzero temperatures, so that the Thing can freeze and hibernate until the rescue team finds it. Mac, believing that no one will survive this, vows to kill the Thing, and decides to “warm things up a little.” They blow up the spaceship, and go through the station, blowing it up room by room. Their final destination is the generator room.

Downstairs, Garry finds that the generator is not quite destroyed so much as completely removed. Mac decides that they must level the building by placing explosives in prime areas. Garry and Nauls line up strings of TNT that run to a plunger box. While separated from the others, Garry is suddenly confronted by Blair, who shoves his hand through Garry’s face, killing him. Nauls sees Blair dragging Garry’s corpse away and tentatively investigates. Mac hears a faint crashing sound; Nauls is not seen again. Mac lights the final stick of dynamite when the floor suddenly crashes upward and a thick tentacle swallows the plunger box. The Thing appears, as a monstrous worm amalgamated of all its previous forms. Mac runs to a safe distance and tosses the dynamite at the Thing before escaping. The explosion decimates the base, gutting the buildings and blowing nearly everything apart.

In the final scene, a tired, but alive Mac stumbles into the remains of a building and collapses against an oil barrel. Childs soon appears, armed with the final flame thrower, but does not move to torch Mac. When Mac asks where he went, Childs responds that he saw Blair out in the snow, and went after him, getting lost in the storm. The fire will keep things warm, but only for a little while. Mac figures they won’t survive, either-unless one of them is the Thing. Even if that’s so, Mac also figures, they’re too tired to do anything about it anyhow. They sit and share Mac’s bottle of J&B as the remains of the camp burn and the film ends.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu