The Thing's Ending Debate Was Solved 22 Years Ago (& You Probably Missed It)

Summary The Thing's ambiguous ending was solved in the 2002 video game, giving a definitive answer to MacReady and Childs' fates.

Carpenter debunked the "eye gleam" theory and confirmed he knows who's the Thing at the end, conflicting with the video game.

The movie's ending is better left ambiguous, fitting its theme of paranoia, while the video game provides a satisfying answer.

John Carpenter’s The Thing has an ambiguous ending that sparked a lot of debate and made way for various theories, but all this was already solved 22 years ago, though many might have missed it. John Carpenter is one of the most influential horror filmmakers in history, with his 1978 film, Halloween, being key in the development of the slasher genre in the 1980s. Carpenter has since continued his work in the horror genre, and in 1982, he brought the sci-fi horror movie The Thing, based on the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr.

The Thing takes the audience to Antarctica to meet a group of American researchers who come across a mysterious, extraterrestrial life form that assimilates and imitates other organisms. This results in the title “Thing” replacing the team’s members one by one, with the survivors quickly overcome by paranoia as they no longer know who they can trust and who could be the Thing. Despite getting negative reviews during its initial release, The Thing is now regarded as one of the greatest sci-fi and horror movies ever and its ending has been the subject of endless debate – but the answer to it was already given 22 years ago.

Related Why John Carpenter's The Thing Originally Received Such Bad Reviews John Carpenter's The Thing is now one of the best horror movies ever, but when it was released in 1982, it received really bad reviews. Here's why.

The Thing’s Video Game Sequel Revealed Childs & MacReady’s Fate After The Movie

The Thing’s Video Game Is Considered Canon

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The 2002 video game The Thing serves as a sequel to the movie. In it, the player is Captain Blake, a member of the United States Army Special Forces team sent to Antarctica to determine what happened to the team.

The Thing’s group of researchers includes R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell), a helicopter pilot who, when the Thing starts messing with them at their station, takes control after the team loses faith in the leadership of their commander, Garry (Donald Moffat). When the Thing starts assimilating the members of the group, Copper (Richard Dysart) suggests testing their blood and comparing it to the uncontaminated samples they had in storage to see who was still human and who was the Thing. Unfortunately, someone (or something) gets to the blood before them and destroys the samples.

Related The Thing: Who Got To The Blood? John Carpenter's The Thing brought sci-fi and body horror, as well as a big mystery fans have been trying to solve for decades: who got to the blood?

After finding another way to test their blood, the paranoia among the group only grows, and by the end of The Thing, only two crew members remain: MacReady and Childs (Keith David), the chief mechanic who disappeared minutes before but returns after MacReady triggers explosives, destroying the station. At the end of The Thing, MacReady sits by the burning remnants of the station and is joined by Childs, who claims to have gotten lost in the storm while pursuing one of their colleagues-Thing.

With seemingly no way out and no other solution to save themselves from the Thing, MacReady and Childs simply accept their fates in the snow and share a bottle of Scotch whisky. This left the question of whether MacReady or Childs (or both) was the Thing or not, even making way for the famous “eye gleam” theory. However, this was answered in the 2002 video game The Thing, which serves as a sequel to the movie. In it, the player is Captain Blake, a member of the United States Army Special Forces team sent to Antarctica to determine what happened to the team.

Carpenter endorsed the video game and considers it canon, so it gives a definitive answer to what happened to Childs and MacReady.

Once there, they find a tape recorder with a message from MacReady, resigned to their fate, and also find the body of Childs, who died from hypothermia. MacReady doesn’t appear in The Thing video game until the very end, when Blake comes across a helicopter pilot who helps him defeat the Thing and with whom he flies away from the base, and the pilot is none other than MacReady. Carpenter endorsed the video game and considers it canon, so it gives a definitive answer to what happened to Childs and MacReady.

John Carpenter Has Already Debunked A Popular Theory About The Thing’s Ending

Carpenter debunked the “eye gleam” theory in 2023, saying that he knows who’s the Thing and who’s not at the end of the movie, which clashes with what the video game revealed.

If The Thing’s 2002 video game is a canon sequel to Carpenter’s movie, then the debate of who was the Thing at the end of it should be over, but it isn’t just yet. As mentioned above, there’s a popular “eye gleam” theory triggered by The Thing’s cinematographer Dean Cundey, who revealed that in the blood test sequence, he and Carpenter came up with the idea of adding light to the eyes of the characters who were still human. This made way for the belief that the same technique was used in the ending, thus hinting at who was still human and who wasn’t.

Carpenter debunked the “eye gleam” theory in 2023, saying that he knows who’s the Thing and who’s not at the end of the movie, which clashes with what the video game revealed. According to the video game, neither Childs nor MacReady were the Thing, so either Carpenter was messing with the audience or MacReady wasn’t human anymore at the end of the video game.

The Thing’s Movie Ending Is Better Left Ambiguous

The Thing Is Better With The Mysteries Of Its Ending

The more paranoid and distrustful MacReady and company grew, the more intrigued and confused the audience was, as they also had no idea who could have been the Thing.

The ambiguous ending of The Thing perfectly fits the movie’s main themes and intentions. The more paranoid and distrustful MacReady and company grew, the more intrigued and confused the audience was, as they also had no idea who could have been the Thing and who could still have been alive. With that in mind, it makes sense that The Thing would leave the audience wondering if MacReady and Childs were still human or not, continuing with the theme of paranoia until the very end, while also leaving a sense of unease, as if they were human, they were going to freeze to death.

Ultimately, The Thing doesn’t need to reveal if MacReady or Childs was the Thing at the end or not, as that wouldn’t change anything else in the movie. The mystery left by the ending of The Thing has also been key to the legacy of John Carpenter’s movie, but for those looking for a definitive answer, the video game gives a pretty satisfying and fitting one.