A Personal History of Horror Films in 101 Quirky Objects #11: R.J. MacReady’s Computer Chess Game in The Thing (1982)

by Vince Stadon

“We're gonna draw a little bit of everybody's blood... 'cause we're gonna find out who's the Thing.” – R.J. MacReady 

If nothing monstrous or extraterrestrial or monstrously extraterrestrial had happened during R.J. MacReady’s time at the National Science Institute Station 4... if the Norwegians had not dug up an alien spaceship that had been buried in the arctic ice for thousands of years... if they hadn’t thawed out the Thing, which had then gone on to eat dogs and humans and then assimilate them and take on their form... if it hadn't then revealed themselves to be component parts of a gestalt gory-tentacle-stomach-teeth-mutant-spider legs-eyes on stalks-huge writhing unearthly gross-out Thing (created, somehow, by practical prosthetics special effects wizard Rob Bottin)...  

If none of that had happened, something else as momentous and unusual would have happened instead. I know this because I know R.J. MacCready, and what I know most about him is that he is a shit-magnet: he attracts trouble wherever he goes. He can’t help it. He’s a redneck/blue collar troublemaker slidin’ along on easy charm and good looks, and wherever he goes Shit Goes Down. I think everyone knows that R.J. MacReady is really that other Kurt Russell redneck/blue collar troublemaker: one-eyed convict Snake Pliskin from Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981). And he’s also Kurt Russell as truck driver Jack Burton from Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and he’s homeless street fighter Nada from Carpenter’s They Live (1988), where Kurt Russell is played by "Rowdy” Roddy Piper. But most of all, he’s Kurt Russell as John Carpenter’s Elvis Presley in the made-for-television biopic Elvis (1979), and if you watch those Carpenter/Russell trouble-maker films with Elvis in mind, it’ll all make sense.  

For Elvis had made a series of terrible movies in the ‘60s, casting him as a redneck troublemaker slidin’ by on easy charm and good looks as he raced cars or flew planes or rode bulls, and it’s ridiculously easy to picture a terrible ‘60s Elvis movie version of The Thing (possibly called The King vs The Thing), in which Elvis is the sole male crewmember of an arctic base staffed by hot girls in miniskirts and mink stoles who all have the hots for Elvis, and all the girls get taken over by the Thing and Elvis has to make out with them to determine who is a real hot girl in a miniskirt and a mink stole and who is the Thing. And Elvis would get to sing "You’re the Devil in Disguise” to Ann-Margret, who, mid-smooch, would wink at the camera at the end of the movie. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Hang on, Vince, what’s Elvis got to do with a computer chess game? For with the best will in the world, chess is not an obvious association with the hip-shaking, lip-curling King of Rock n’ Roll from Memphis, Tennessee.” And you’d be right to think this. But here’s the thing, the way R.J. MacReady plays chess is the way I suspect Elvis would: he is bested easily without seeing it coming, and in a drunken strop, he pours his tumbler of J&B blended Scotch whisky into the computer and sulks away bitterly. “Cheating bitch!” he mumbles problematically as he leaves.  

He can’t accept he’s been beaten by (a) something non-human, and worse, by (b) something that sounds like a woman. The voice of the chess programme – CHESS WIZARD – belongs to actress Adrienne Barbeau, the then-Mrs Carpenter, who had memorably played the sultry night owl radio DJ in 1980’s The Fog. She is the only female presence in the movie; the all-male environment of the Arctic and the two bases is a low-key factor in the all-prevailing feeling of isolation and paranoid discomfort this brilliant movie generates right from the beginning, and which builds and builds throughout. R.J. MacReady’s brilliant move is to blow up the game: he wins by not playing by the rules. And that’s Elvis, right there. And the strategy R.J. MacReady employs with chess will serve him well throughout the film as he gets more and more sloshed, and the Thing gets more and more dangerous. 

That he’s a functioning alcoholic cannot be disputed: R.J. is swigging back J&B in near-enough half the scenes he’s in. In this buzzed state, he is able to make snap decisions that prove to be smart: checking out the Norwegian base; locking Blair in the tool shed; threatening everyone with dynamite; performing the blood-sample test; blowing up the base. He even gets to make a record. 

As the Thing assimilates the crew one-by-one and causes panic, sabotage, confusion, and paranoia, Mac responds in the most human, most male, most Elvis way possible. The Thing might be playing 4-D chess, but Mac’s go-to problem solver is to simply blow shit up with flamethrowers and dynamite, making him the perfect drunken macho action hero, dashing through the snow in his mighty beard, bottle in one hand, flamethrower in the other, taking no shit and playing by his own rules. He is so beloved that he’s the only character in the film to have his own Wikipedia entry. What a guy! The Thing just didn’t stand a chance. 

The Thing is the second John Carpenter horror film to make this list, and I seriously considered three more: The Fog (1980), Prince of Darkness (1987), In The Mouth of Madness (1994). This might be the most accomplished and gripping Carpenter film. It is at once an exercise in pulse-raising suspense (the wind-swept arctic has never seemed more ominous and alive than the way the little base is encroached by it and by the Thing, as Ennio Morricone’s minimalist score pulsates in the background) and an astonishing FX film, boasting ground-breaking, unforgettable visuals that remain a cinema milestone. The decidedly cool critical reception to The Thing is both unsurprising and disappointing. It’s a classy, enduring film way ahead of its time, but also very much of its time, underappreciated and too smart for its own good. Like R.J. MacReady and his computer chess game, the critics’ reaction was to blow it up. 

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More obvious picks for an object to represent this film: the blood-test slides; Mac’s tape recorder; the flamethrower; the scraps of shredded long johns; the stick of dynamite 

The Thing (1986); 109 mins; US 

Directed by John Carpenter; Written by Bill Lancaster (based on Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell); Produced by David Foster and Lawrence Turman; Cinematography by Dean Cundey; Music by Ennio Morricone 

Kurt Russell (R.J. McReady); A. Wilford Brimley (Blair); Keith David (Childs); Donald Moffat (Garry); Richard Dysart (Dr. Copper); T. K. Carter (Nauls); David Clennon (Palmer); Charles Hallahan (Norris); Peter Maloney (Bennings); Richard Masur (Clark); Joel Polis (Fuchs); Thomas Waites (Windows) 

© 2025 Vince Stadon