Scenarist Charles Lederer has maintained an amazingly even keel, loading the dialogue with scientific jargon which sounded all right to these unscientific ears keeping it surprisingly natural under highly unnatural circumstances.

| Sep 21, 2021

On the whole the movie is far and away the most original and ingenious in this new category of pseudo-scientific entertainment.

| Sep 21, 2021

Most of the principal roles are well handled, and the script is brightened by occasional bits of rather humorous banter. If you have a taste for this sort of pseudo-scientific stuff, this film is a fair sample.

| Sep 21, 2021

You had better see it soon, right away, before you hear too much about it from those who have had the pleasure. And the thrills and chills.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 21, 2021

It should scare the shirt off anybody who gets caught in its spell, and delight connoisseurs of the Jules Verne type of thrill fiction.

| Sep 21, 2021

While the Thing is encased In ice, the picture has a disturbing quality that is heightened by the objective, documentary treatment of the camera -- a real, ominous "What is it?" feeling.

| Sep 21, 2021

Taking a fantastic notion (or is it, really?), Mr. Hawks has developed a movie that is generous with thrills and chills and comes up with just enough light, bantering dialogue so that the film does not appear to take itself too seriously.

| Sep 21, 2021

If it just fails to tingle the flesh, it is ingenious enough to prickle the imagination.

| Sep 21, 2021

The resourcefulness shown in building the plot groundwork is lacking as the yarn gets into full swing. Cast members, headed by Margaret Sheridan and Kenneth Tobey, fail to communicate any real terror.

| Sep 21, 2021

The film is pretty well done, and the acting, totally stripped of phony glamor and with real-sounding dialogue, is good indeed. You have the impression you are watching people, not actors.

| Sep 21, 2021

The Thing, in spite of a typical American mingling of facetiousness, violence, and sentimentality, does adequately up to the point when the real difficulties begin. Then it fails, as better films will doubtless fail in the future.

| Sep 21, 2021

The humans staked out by The Thing for its victory garden are a bit more convincing, but not by much.

| Nov 24, 2020

Set the template for a decade of alien invasions.

| Sep 16, 2013

The film has more frissons than most of today's mega-budget productions, simply because it has the grace to construct a meaningful situation and coherent characters.

| Jun 6, 2007

The overall message of The Thing emerges as distinctly hawkish. Reactionary or not, though, it's still a masterpiece.

| Feb 9, 2006

The conflict between Hendry and Carrington is one between Force and Reason, and represents a debate over whether America should cope with its Soviet adversaries through military confrontation or intellectual and diplomatic study.

| Aug 13, 2003