In 1982, paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is recruited by scientists Dr. Sander Halversen (Ulrich Thomsen) and his assistant Adam Goodman (Eric Christian Olsen) to join a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship buried beneath the ice of Antarctica. They discover the frozen corpse of a creature that seems to have died in the crash 100,000 years ago.
After the creature is transported back to base in a block of ice, Dr. Sander orders them to conduct an experiment to retrieve a tissue sample, against Kate's protests. Later, while the others celebrate, American helicopter pilot Derek Jameson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) sees the Thing escape from the block of ice. The team splits up into groups to search for the alien. Olav (Jan Gunnar Røise) and Henrik (Jo Adrian Haavind) discover it hiding under one of the buildings. The Thing grabs Henrik and pulls him into its body. The others converge on the scene and set it and the entire building on fire. In the chaotic aftermath, the lone dog of the team is found dead in a bloody heap in its kennel, a massive hole torn in the wire mesh.
During an autopsy, Kate and Dr. Sander discover that the creature was somehow digesting Henrik's body. Based on an examination of a sample of Henrik's tissue, Kate determines that the cells of the Thing were attaching to, absorbing, and imitating Henrik's cells. Meanwhile, Derek, pilot Sam Carter (Joel Edgerton), Griggs (Paul Braunstein), and Olav prepare to leave the base in the only helicopter to bring back help. Just as they prepare to take off, Kate discovers four bloody, discarded metal tooth fillings and a massive amount of blood on the shower walls and floor. She runs outside to flag down the departing helicopter, fearing that one of the passengers is the Thing. When Carter decides to land, Griggs, who is really one of the Things, transforms and kills Olav, causing the helicopter to spin wildly out of control and crash, presumably killing all onboard.
In the rec room, Kate tells the other scientists her theory on the nature of the creature: It is perfectly capable of imitating any life form, but cannot imitate inorganic material such as metal, hence why it spit out the tooth fillings. Most of the team members either do not believe her or accuse her of turning them against each other out of paranoia. After everyone else leaves, Juliette (Kim Bubbs) tells Kate that she believes her, and says that she saw Colin (Jonathan Lloyd Walker) leave the shower with some sort of towel or rag. Juliette tells Kate that she knows where they keep the keys to all the vehicles, and that they can take them to prevent anyone else from leaving; however, when the two are alone in the storeroom where the keys are, Juliette transforms and attempts to kill Kate. Kate escapes, running past Karl (Carsten Bjørnlund), who is killed by the Juliette-Thing. Dog handler Lars (Jørgen Langhelle) arrives with a flamethrower and burns the Thing as it assimilates Karl.
As they burn the remains outside, Carter and Derek return, both half-frozen and barely alive. While Peder and Sander both immediately believe that both are Things and should be burned, Kate convinces them to simply lock them in a storage shed until a test can be prepared. Afterward, Adam and Sander are in the lab preparing a potential test, but when both leave for a short while, the lab is suddenly engulfed in flames in an apparent sabotage. Tensions rise as accusations by both the Norwegians and the Americans are made, but Kate proposes another, much simpler test to single out those who might be the Thing from those who aren't. With Peder manning the flamethrower, she uses a flashlight to inspect the teeth of all the other team members to see who has fillings and who doesn't. This test singles out Adam, Dr. Sander, station commander Edvard (Trond Espen Seim), and Colin. Peder sends Lars and Jonas (Kristofer Hivju) out to bring back Carter and Derek, but they have tunneled out the floor of the storage shed and into a neighboring building. While Lars leans in the doorway of the other building, they grab him and pull him inside. Jonas runs back and pleads with Peder to help him rescue Lars, but Kate orders him to guard the prisoners.
During the argument, Carter and Derek force their way inside, armed with Lars's flamethrower. Edvard repeatedly pushes Peder to burn both of them, assuming that they have killed Lars and deserve retribution. But when Peder takes aim, Derek shoots him three times, puncturing his flamethrower's tank and causing an explosion that kills Peder and renders Edvard unconscious. When Edvard is brought back to the rec room, he transforms into the Thing and kills Jonas, Adam, and Derek while Sander runs off to hide. Colin, Carter, and Kate head off in a group to hunt it down, but Colin is eventually separated from them. The Thing, which is now in the form of a creature with the faces of both Edvard and Adam, finds and kills Dr. Sander. The monster manages to separate Carter from Kate and traps him in the kitchen. Just as it is about to kill him, Kate arrives and torches the monster.
Kate and Carter see the Sander-Thing driving off in one of the Snowcats and give chase in the remaining vehicle. They follow it out to the wreck of its ship, which has been opened up and restarted, slowly preparing to take off. Kate and Carter are separated once again and Kate encounters the Thing. She barely manages to stay out of its reach, and when it finally catches her, she destroys it with a grenade. She and Carter escape and make it back to the Snowcat. As they are preparing to leave, Kate notices that Carter is missing his left ear piercing and determines that he is one of the Things. Despite his protests, she burns him and destroys the Snowcat. Kate slowly climbs into the remaining Snowcat and stares blankly into the night.
The next morning, a Norwegian helicopter pilot, Matias (Ole Martin Aune Nilsen), arrives at the Norwegian camp in a two-man helicopter and finds the facility burning and deserted, as well as the charred remains of the two-faced Thing. It is then revealed that Colin went into the radio room and committed suicide by slitting both of his wrists and his throat with a scalpel. Lars, who has survived hiding in the building where Derek and Carter attacked him, shoots at Matias but recognizes that he is human after checking his fillings. At that moment, the Thing in the form of Lars' dog bolts out of a ruined building and runs away. Lars fires at it, then orders Matias to take off in pursuit. Lars begins shooting at the animal from the helicopter, directly leading into the beginning of John Carpenter's The Thing.
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