I was reading this piece on BAD, http://www.badassdigest.com/2011/08/19/was-childs-the-thing, about whether Childs was a Thing at the end of The Thing and it made me think about ambiguous endings and how they can make or break a film. So I thought that seen as the soundtrack list is about to wind down we'd kick off another list.
Naturally my first choice is.
#1. The Thing (1982) d. John Carpenter
MacCready and Childs sitting in a snow-storm K-I-S-S-I-N-G. And by kissing I mean being suspicious of each other.
It's one of those great desolate endings, the last two survivors sitting down and waiting for death, their only solace the knowledge that they blew up whatever it was that caused all this trouble. In a film marked by mounting tension and suspicion it's the perfect capper to have two men who don't trust each other be the last thing we see. The evidence that Childs is a thing is there, but it's all conjecture. We'll never know if Childs was infected or not (unless this years Remake ends with the Norwegians stumbling onto the base) and it perfectly hammers home the sense of unease that the film deals in.
That final moment, of a shared bottle and a shared laugh, has more tension than some entire films.
