10 Greatest ‘I’m Dead And I Know It’ Moments In Movie History
2. Drinking Scotch With The Monster - The Thing
The ending of The Thing is pretty divisive by virtue of its uncertainty. John Carpenter himself said that he wanted the ending to be something you could think on and work out for yourself, and that’s part of what makes it so iconic.
In the final scene our two remaining characters, Childs and MacReady, settle down in the snow as the station burns. It’s pretty widely agreed that Childs has become the Thing, as signalled by a range of signs such as how his breath is not visible in the freezing air like MacReady’s is. It’s implied that MacReady knows this too.
That’s what makes MacReady’s final moments all the more incredible: as he slumps down further in the snow, his beard frosting over, he accepts that death is coming.
He sits fearlessly in front of the alien that has killed all his colleagues. He knows that nothing matters, that both him and Childs/The Thing are going to freeze to death pretty soon, but he embraces it and shares a bottle with his end-of-life associate. It’s a pretty bad-ass way to go, just waiting out the inevitable in the frozen expanse.