The Thing (1982)Once you hear that creeping bass line, you know something sinister is afoot, and the spark of paranoia is about to spread into an unquenchable flame. Set in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica, John Carpenter's The Thing follows a team of American researchers investigating who-knows-what, when a pair of Norwegians from another camp shows up by helicopter, shooting at a dog. Before the Americans can learn what had the Norwegians so spooked, they are dead, leaving only the dog they were pursuing behind. As they struggle to piece together what grisly fate befell their Scandinavian comrades, they are secretly stalked by a predator not of this world.
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The Thing is a science fiction and horror movie both, a loose remake of Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World, which was also adapted from John W. Campbell, Jr.'s novella "Who Goes There?". The film thrives on paranoia-inducing red herrings and ambiguous leads, where we as the audience are as much in the dark as the characters in the film about where the terror truly lurks. The film is restrained in providing us identifying information about the nature of the beast that lurks beneath the skin, that morphs into the simulacrum of its victims. All that we really know is that "the thing" crashed in its flying saucer perhaps one hundred thousand years ago, and was flash frozen while trying to escape. If the thing possesses any native shape, we certainly never see it--instead, we see its imitations, its perceptions of how to appear. Even in the midst of its gruesome transformations, it shares qualities that resemble interpretations of nature, like spider legs and a mass of flesh and eyes. Like all good aliens, it is adverse to fire, a characteristic which when discovered that is exploited to great effect by the tenacious R. J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) when the survivors are pressed to give their blood to expose the deception. MacReady is not a scientist, but a pilot; but he is clever enough to identify the danger that lurks in the dark, within the skin of his companions. MacReady is smart, but not an excellent strategist, as evidenced by our first encounter with him playing chess with a computer. At first, he is confident that he has the upper hand; when it gets away from him and he is doomed--"checkmate"--he pours his drink into the computer, short circuiting it out of spite. A fighter to the end, even when things go belly up.
John Carpenter plays off of the many inherent fears of the cold, bleak, and wintry landscape in tandem with the unknowable fear that comes from a complete lack of trust and sense that death lurks in the shadows. When attempting to ascertain why the Norwegians had come firing rifles and hurling grenades, the physician Copper (Richard Dysart) observes that it might have something to do with "cabin fever". When the presence of the thing is revealed in the Americans' camp later, the survivors having been picked off one by one--or assimilated, more accurately--everyone turns on one another, not knowing how the alien's unique kind of dominion over them is transmitted for sure. One member of the team recommends eating only out of cans, another makes a mad dash for the shotguns when he feels threatened, and another goes berserk and starts smashing the radio room to bits. These men are not lunatics--okay, Palmer (David Clennon) is a little weird--but they abandon their trust and camaraderie once they realize that it could cost them their lives. In a way, the alien has an unforeseen advantage in human beings' natural predilection to turn on one another when death comes calling. The Thing is a film rich with unique characters that we get to know as the film progresses. Watching them turn to paranoid and hysterical wrecks as the shapechanger stalks them in their own base is harrowing, because they are like people we might know...some may even be like ourselves. The Thing exploits this by making us inured to these personality quirks, so that when someone is revealed as the alien, it is all the more jarring. When the alien does show itself, it is often with a shocking display of horrific violence and bizarre--even strange--transformations. The special effects are stunning, detailed, and unsettling, even hypnotic. Watching the alien warp and wend into bizarre and monstrous shapes is graphic enough--when another person makes the transition into a bloody composite of tentacles and teeth where once stood a human being, that's even better. The Thing is a personal favorite cult movie of mine--as it is for many sci-fi/horror fans--and it has become a bloody metaphor for the distrust that lurks within each of us when push comes to shove. But when The Thing debuted in 1982, it was going up against many other blockbuster sci-fi films, and was even considered to be something of a critical and commercial disappointment. Although reviewers then had expressed feelings of discontent occasionally bordering on antipathy for the film, time has been more generous to this visceral remake of its predecessor. And--this gets me--the musical score was nominated for a "Razzie Award". Now go back and listen to that bass line, and try not to feel it crawl under your skin, just like the monster lurking...right behind you!
Recommended for: Fans of anxiety-inducing horror with aliens of the less-than-benevolent sort. Watch it again and again, and you'll still find yourself wondering when somebody got taken...and you'll still second guess yourself, and that's part of the fun.
John Carpenter plays off of the many inherent fears of the cold, bleak, and wintry landscape in tandem with the unknowable fear that comes from a complete lack of trust and sense that death lurks in the shadows. When attempting to ascertain why the Norwegians had come firing rifles and hurling grenades, the physician Copper (Richard Dysart) observes that it might have something to do with "cabin fever". When the presence of the thing is revealed in the Americans' camp later, the survivors having been picked off one by one--or assimilated, more accurately--everyone turns on one another, not knowing how the alien's unique kind of dominion over them is transmitted for sure. One member of the team recommends eating only out of cans, another makes a mad dash for the shotguns when he feels threatened, and another goes berserk and starts smashing the radio room to bits. These men are not lunatics--okay, Palmer (David Clennon) is a little weird--but they abandon their trust and camaraderie once they realize that it could cost them their lives. In a way, the alien has an unforeseen advantage in human beings' natural predilection to turn on one another when death comes calling. The Thing is a film rich with unique characters that we get to know as the film progresses. Watching them turn to paranoid and hysterical wrecks as the shapechanger stalks them in their own base is harrowing, because they are like people we might know...some may even be like ourselves. The Thing exploits this by making us inured to these personality quirks, so that when someone is revealed as the alien, it is all the more jarring. When the alien does show itself, it is often with a shocking display of horrific violence and bizarre--even strange--transformations. The special effects are stunning, detailed, and unsettling, even hypnotic. Watching the alien warp and wend into bizarre and monstrous shapes is graphic enough--when another person makes the transition into a bloody composite of tentacles and teeth where once stood a human being, that's even better. The Thing is a personal favorite cult movie of mine--as it is for many sci-fi/horror fans--and it has become a bloody metaphor for the distrust that lurks within each of us when push comes to shove. But when The Thing debuted in 1982, it was going up against many other blockbuster sci-fi films, and was even considered to be something of a critical and commercial disappointment. Although reviewers then had expressed feelings of discontent occasionally bordering on antipathy for the film, time has been more generous to this visceral remake of its predecessor. And--this gets me--the musical score was nominated for a "Razzie Award". Now go back and listen to that bass line, and try not to feel it crawl under your skin, just like the monster lurking...right behind you!
Recommended for: Fans of anxiety-inducing horror with aliens of the less-than-benevolent sort. Watch it again and again, and you'll still find yourself wondering when somebody got taken...and you'll still second guess yourself, and that's part of the fun.