THE THING is John Carpenter's personal favorite from among the movies he's made. It's Lovecraft-inspired cosmic horror, it's science fiction, it's body horror, it's psychological horror. Who can you trust? Can you trust yourself?
THE LOVED ONES is like freshman year art history. It functions as a little bit of a survey course. I think it shows its references to other films pretty directly. It does not conceal them at all.
It's this crazy home invasion thriller. It's a mystery. It's an unflinchingly, brutal, visceral gorefest that just builds and builds and builds and kind of compounds itself until the very end. And it's a Christmas movie.