Antarctic scientists enjoy midwinter chill-out with ice station horror flick

Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey marked the shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere yesterday with a midwinter feast, a message from royalty and their traditional viewing of John Carpenter’s 1982 ice station horror, The Thing.

The British Antarctic Survey is the UK’s national polar research institute, with four research stations operating throughout the year in the Antarctic and one during the summer. While the UK celebrates the longest day, the researchers experience 24 hours of darkness across the continent.

They celebrated their solstice with an exchange of gifts, and the BBC World Service produced its 70th midwinter broadcast for them, with music requests and messages from home, as well as a message from King Charles.

The scientists also settled down, as they do every year, to The Thing, a frostbitten body horror starring Kurt Russell. It depicts a group of US researchers in Antarctica encountering the nastiest kind of alien life. Midsummer it may be, but man is still the warmest spot in which to hide.

The film continues to horrify today. The Thing intercepts and begins to assimilate – not by popping a Coors, like E.T, but by concealing itself within the sled dogs and then the crew members themselves, picking them off one by one.

Carpenter’s aversion to CGI – and the purported $1.5m afforded to Rob Bottin’s queasying special effects – holds up, 40 years after its original release.

The film was met with ambivalence at the time – neither a flop nor a hit. It remains a cult classic, at least in Antarctica, but not for the faint of heart.

Photograph by Universal Pictures