‘It’s just a story about paranoia’ remarks Kurt Russell about The Thing in a documentary focusing on horror master John Carpenter. It’s about ‘the breakdown of human beings believing in each other.’

First and foremost The Thing is probably most remembered for its brutal special effects and grotesquery: the horrific manifestations of a shape-shifting alien as it moves from host from host, animal to human, in order to survive the wintry conditions of the film’s Antarctic setting. It’s a film which indulges itself in the kind of excessive on-screen horror that could only warrant the kind of line given by one character – ‘you gotta be fucking kidding’ – which is then surely echoed by both its contemporary and modern audiences.

But for all its overload of guts and gore, the careful construction of its quieter moments in which the twelve man crew, led by Kurt Russell’s MacReady, begin to turn on each other, is deserving of attention in itself. In no other image is this tension and paranoia put across more effectively than it is in the frame above.

The frame captures MacReady at its centre, a flame thrower in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other. After being deliberately cut loose from the guideline outside by Nauls who suspects he may have been assimilated by the alien, MacReady fights his way back into the base, certain that he has not been taken over and ready to take down everyone with him if they dare to challenge him again. The deep focus photography, however, whilst depicting MacReady in the background, also emphasises the scalpel now taken up by the equally paranoid Clark, as seen in the foreground. Clearly, the scalpel is hidden from MacReady’s view but in a composition of Hitchcockian brilliance, Carpenter allows his audience to see and know more than his chief protagonist is aware of. Adding to this tension is the fact that we can see four bodies on-screen, but only two faces, unable to gauge either Nauls or Clark’s expression. We are also aware that several other men who may potentially have been taken over are in the room as well. Our attention has been distracted away from those who lurk just out of frame.

The interplay between character eye-lines and posture, doesn’t exactly position this scene as a Mexican stand-off and yet the tension of such a trope comes through with full force. No one trusts each other and each are waiting nervously for someone else to make the first move. This shot comes just before one of The Thing‘s most shocking moments. It’s the calm before the storm in which all hell breaks loose.