John Carpenter's The Thing is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year in 2022, so now is the perfect time to look back at the horror classic and all of its gruesome kills. Mixing paranoia and isolation, The Thing relies on a lot of tension but when the even extraterrestrial attacks, carnage follows.
Not only does the Thing pick off the many memorable characters, but the heroes such as R.J. MacReady and Childs also do their fair share of kills of the monster's imitations. Some kills are more gruesome than others while others take place entirely off-screen, so they do not count.
Clark
It shows how brutal some of these kills can be when the tamest is being shot in the head. Poor Clark was a red herring due to his connection to the dogs which made everyone suspect him of being an imitation.
He also was a victim of paranoia, making him attempt to kill MacReady which resulted in being shot. At least Clark didn't have to suffer through any mutilations or assimilations from the titular monster.
Lars
Lars was one of the only surviving members of the Norwegian base; the events of the prequel explain why he was so frantic and unable to communicate with the American base workers.
It also makes his death at the hands of Gerry's revolver a bit sadder because he's the only one who knew about and survived the Thing. However, just like with Clarke, being shot to death is much more merciful than any encounter with the creature.
Matias
Foolishly, this pilot sought to go after a live grenade which not only obliterated him but also destroyed the helicopter. It's a quick and painless death but one gruesome way to go out.
Matias didn't quite know what was going on either. He showed up at the Norwegian camp ablaze and he was forced by Lars to suddenly pursue a dog through the Antarctic tundra.
Bennings
Only partially shown on-screen, Bennings' death gives audiences a glimpse at the Thing's imitation process by taking hold of a victim and swallowing them; this is one of many similarities to the aliens from body snatcher movies.
Windows sees Bennings cocooned in tentacles, slime, and what seems to be blood. Almost like the Thing was melting Bennings as it devoured and assimilated him.
Bennings-Thing
When the Thing imitates Bennings and is caught up by the rest of the crew, it lets out an alien scream that became one of the more iconic scenes of the film. His death is fairly simple: being burned alive.
The crew was lucky that the Thing had not finished imitating Bennings; as shown later, more fully formed imitations react more defensively to being attacked, especially by the threat of fire.
Dog-Thing
This is the first monstrous form that the Thing takes after it assimilates multiple dogs. It makes for an impactful first impression of the titular villain that will be terrifying audiences for the duration of the film.
It's with this death at the hands of Childs, one of Keith David's most iconic roles, that viewers see the Thing's ultimate weakness: fire. With flamethrowers that are never explained why they are there, Childs torches the monster, but not every cell is killed, leading to their downfall.
Blair-Thing
Though the visual of the Thing's final form of Blair mutating into a massive monster is a highlight, the creature's death is not that grisly. Thanks to MacReady, the Thing is destroyed in a massive explosion that also decimates the camp.
The destruction is not even shown. Instead, viewers just see the outpost go up in flames from a distance as the Thing lets out a dying screech that echoes in an amalgamation of multiple voices.
Copper
A tragic but iconic death happens when Copper attempts to revive Norris after he has a heart attack. Unfortunately, Norris turns out to be a Thing imitation because when Copper uses a defibrillator unit, Norris' entire chest opens up as a giant mouth and devours Copper's arms.
Copper's screams of death help elevate the brutality of this death, making it one of the scariest scenes in The Thing. With everything down to the bones severed off with one bite, Copper's screams start low and gradually get higher in pitch until he falls to the ground. The shock and blood loss work quickly in killing the good doctor.
The Dogs
Animal lovers shudder at the memory of this death. The Thing first reveals itself when in the form of the new husky is put with the other dogs. It quickly gets to work and assimilates multiple dogs, spraying them with acidic slime, using tentacles to pierce through their skin, and more shown off-screen.
MacReady is merciful enough to shoot one dog before it can be fully assimilated. It's a sad death of innocent dogs that shows that this is one of cinema's most evil aliens; it has no care for any person or animal.
Windows
Windows proved to be one of the more likable crew members but unfortunately, fear got the better of him when Palmer's imitation attacked. Already, he was terrified of the transformation but suddenly, a tentacle pulls him into a massive mouth that swallowed most of him and thrashed about.
Windows was somehow still alive and thrown across a room to be covered in the Thing's slime that was slowly turning him into a Thing. Finally, he's finished off with a flamethrower, likely in an in-between state; meaning that Windows was able to feel the pain, making this death even more gruesome.
Palmer-Thing
Despite it being a surprise reveal, there are a lot of things that foreshadowed that Palmer was an imitation. The Thing can only be fully killed through two methods: fire and explosions.
MacReady combined both with this one, using the flamethrower to stop the Palmer imitation after it attacked Windows. As it burned, it broke outside through a wall, allowing MacReady to toss a stick of lit dynamite to the flaming monster, making it explode.
Garry
In the final on-screen human death of The Thing, Garry foolishly walks off on his own to fix his flashlight when Blair-Thing attacks. There is no blood involved but what Blair does is still disturbing to witness.
Blair-Thing covers Gerry's mouth and at the same time, his fingers plunge into the skin of Garry's face, preventing him from making any noise. It gets worse when Nauls looks down a hallway to see Blair-Thing dragging Gerry away with his face stretched out, now part of the Thing's arm.
Norris-Thing
Easily the most famous form that the Thing takes is after it kills Copper and Norris' body explodes into a spider-like creature with a twisted version of Norris' head. MacReady can kill it with the flamethrower but that's only the beginning as the body of Norris acts independently.
The original head of Norris stretches and pulls itself off the body in a grotesque fashion before growing spider legs and insect-like eyes. After one of the more humorous quotes of the movie from Palmer, MacReady torches this part of Norris-Thing too, leaving it to screech and squeal in pain. Not only is it gross and disturbing but it shows that even a small piece of the Thing can still operate on its own.