Title:
The Thing
What Year?:
1982
Classification:
Improbable Experiment/ Weird Sequel
Rating:
Classic! (2/3)
In the course of my reviews up to creating this feature, the recurring common denominator has been outright random. With the present review, I have an example more egregious than usual, as I had already considered not one but two promising films that weren’t even bad. Then, by total happenstance, I discovered that a local theater was going to show an all-time favorite film that’s been well-known and liked. I took the shot, and once I did, I knew I had to go back in while things were fresh. With that, I introduce The Thing, a movie that kind of made its own legend.
Our story begins with a flying saucer hurtling towards Earth, in what’s revealed to be ca. 98,000 BC. Flash forward to the present, and we come to the barren landscape of Antarctica, where a small American research station is threatened by two seemingly crazed foreigners out to kill a dog. The encounter ends with the dog alive and its pursuers dead, so the expedition’s animal lover takes in the animal while the doctor Blair and the goofy pilot Macready try to figure out what happened at the foreign base. Soon, the dog transforms into a hideous alien creature that attacks and assimilates several of the expedition’s animals before it is destroyed. The horror isn’t over, as it becomes clear that at leas one of the human expedition members is already infected. The fate of the Earth depends on finding the Thing among them- and it’s up to Mac to do it!
The Thing was a 1982 film by John Carpenter (see Dark Star, They Live), based on the 1938 novella “Who Goes There?” by John Campbell and the 1951 film The Thing From Another World. The film starred Kurt Russell (see… Sky High?) as Macready and Wilford Brimley (see… Battle For Endor???) as Blair, with Keith David as Childs. The creatures and other practical effects were created by Rob Bottin. Additional effects for the transformed dog were provided by Stan Winston (see Invaders From Mars). The soundtrack was scored by Ennio Morricone, otherwise best known for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. The film was considered a commercial disappointment, earning a box office of under $20 million against a $15M budget. It attracted further controversy over its effects, gore, and typically unfavorable comparisons with the 1951 film. Peter Nicholls writing in 1984 commented favorably on the reintroduction of the “shape-shifting” element of the original story, and further praised the film as “an object lesson in building tension and atmosphere economically”. The film gained in popularity on home video, culminating in a 2011 prequel/ remake. It remains available on multiple formats and platforms.
For my experiences, this is one movie where I truly feel like I was “there”, despite it coming out barely within my own lifetime. I was aware of it quite early, mostly because it incomprehensibly turned up on TV, and I believe I may have seen the very end once or twice. What was pivotal for me was that I read and loved Campbell’s story at a fairly early age in the middling 1990s. After hearing a little more about it, including plot points I recognized from Campbell, I watched it and honestly wasn’t that impressed until I gave it a couple viewings. By the early 2000s, I was a full-blown convert, showing my own tape to quite a few friends who as far as I knew hadn’t seen it or heard much about it. (Right, and I used it for an Exotroopers adventure I never finished proofreading...) What really stands out is that even then, many of the books I consulted were critical at best, usually repeating the refrain that the ‘50s film was so much better. It was surely quite a bit later, therefore, that the present film reached the heights of fame praise it had now, and I can’t avoid the feeling that my experiences are a microcosm of a reality people are already forgetting.
Moving forward, the one thing I have to say by way of comparison is that this is one time a movie actually improves on the literary source material. (The ‘50s film is a cluster rant I won’t even try to fit in here…) Campbell wrote for a time when characters were subordinate to concepts and the exposition dump was an unquestioned convention. He also dragged into his writing and subsequent editing a notorious “pro-human” bias that would help cement the happy-ending formula of the alien invasion genre. Carpenter belatedly completed the long, slow revolt by offering a version of Campbell’s own tale where there’s never any question the Earthlings can lose, and (spoiler) do lose on a certain level. There is still plenty that’s conventional or cliched, which accounts for most of the “cons”. The heroic tough guy is really glorified comic relief. The conflict and paranoia of the middle act (still not quite up to the level of the story) is mostly interchangeable melodrama. The resolution hinges on a good idea that arrives when it is needed rather than naturally evolved. On the pro side, there is a postmodern sensibility that leads to several scenes that are more unnerving if you already know who is Thinged, inviting analysis and speculation where the real moral may simply be that the alien cannot be understood by human minds.
That leads to two things, one obvious and one easily missed. The obvious is the astonishing effects, perhaps the closest there will ever be to creature design as abstract art. What really stood out watching this on the big screen is that the effects are done in quite brief glimpses, in which even things you are looking for are easy to miss, yet you can also notice something new. My personal favorite is the behavior of Thing tissue carried over from Campbell, modestly described in print, but here so extreme Mac himself is completely unprepared for what he’s expecting. The less obvious element is the grungy, rickety base, whose defects and lived-in charm are all the more prominent on a theater screen. It makes even the Nostromo look sleek and clean by comparison. At the same time, I find the same symbolic significance played even more effectively. This isn’t just a place, but a man-made ecosystem essential to keeping both the humans and the alien alive. In a fitting symbol of both ecological interdependence and Cold War politics, the only way to achieve certain and total victory is to destroy your own life support, a price that the self-reliant male ultimately accepts with psychotic ease.
Now for the “one scene”, I’m going with a creature sequence, something I do very rarely. Here, my pick for the flat-out best is the sequence in the kennel. The commotion starts soon after the well-meaning animal lover leaves the mutt survivor to make friends with the other dogs. It’s when Mac and the others arrive that we see the full extent of the transformation. At this point, I’ll mention that I noticed people laughing during the screening that led to this review. It is a sight I will admit I found just weird on my very first viewing. The transformed dog-Thing is hairless, slimy and almost crusty, like a piece of orange chicken. (Oh yeah, going to an all-you-can-eat buffet after this one might be a bad idea…) The extra touch that makes this nightmare fuel is the bizarrely asymmetrical shape of the head, most visible in the skewed eyes, all while we witness the already horrific fate of the dogs. As Childs/ Keith David (more underused than one tends to remember, possibly to unavoidable circumstances) arrives with a flamethrower, it finally sprouts a couple appendages for an escape. Then there’s the detail embedded in my mind, a not-quite-circular fan of anemone-like tentacles that unfurls as the Thing tries to break out, and next to that, I just noticed, is an extra eye. What the Hell is it, and what would it do? We’ll never know, because that’s when the flame finally takes light…
In closing, I come back
to the rating on a still very new scale. Make no mistake, this film is as good
as any I’m remotely likely to review, and a favorite of mine. (They Live
would probably still pull out ahead on my “best” list.) The real reason I have
given it less than the highest rating is a “narrative” that I have finally decided
to challenge. In retellings, the “story” that has emerged is on the same
template as the martyrdom of a saint: Carpenter made a great film that bombed at
the box office and was hated by critics, but we now recognize it as a classic. I
can attest better than anyone that this is a part of the truth, not the whole.
The movie probably lost money, but it earned a gross better than its budget. It
faired poorly with critics, but that was after the studio invited comparisons with
an already popular film that Carpenter in particular didn’t want. Above all,
while it wasn’t immediately accepted by genre critics or fans, it certainly was
not ignored or forgotten. Plenty of us knew about it, and there are plenty of
films (see Lily CAT and Godzilla Vs. Biollante) that show its influence
from a very early date. On the balance, it got what it deserves, and
certainly better than might have been expected. The final verdict is, not bad
for a remake.
Image credit Cinematerial.
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