Cinema // After: The Thing

A research team stationed in Antarctica discover a lifeform capable of perfectly imitating other organisms. As the creature moves through the camp, suspicion fractures the group and trust becomes impossible.

After the screening, we’ll look closely at how The Thing uses the widescreen frame to generate unease. How Carpenter composes in depth, often keeping multiple figures visible within the same image so that attention is divided and certainty becomes unstable. How the Antarctic landscape functions as more than backdrop, shaping behaviour and isolating bodies within vast negative space. We’ll also consider rhythm and duration: the way scenes are allowed to sit, stretch, and breathe, so paranoia accumulates gradually rather than erupting all at once.

The focus won’t be on the creature as spectacle, but on how space, framing and atmosphere produce the film’s underlying tension.

Cinema // After is Let’s Make Films’ screening and discussion series at Picturehouse Liverpool.

We pick…