Subject: Retrospective: The Thing (1982)

From: [email-masked] (Michael Turton)
Date: 8 Oct 1998 05:13:43 GMT

The Thing (1982) (a.k.a John Carpenter's The Thing)
Directed by John Carpenter.  Starring Kurt Russell.
Reviewed by Michael A. Turton ([email-masked])

Director John Carpenter once noted in an interview that he was puzzled by the
the indifference of audiences to _The Thing_. In view of the cult status of so
many of his films, the failure of _The Thing_ to find popularity is a bit of a
mystery, all the more so since it features the same pairing of director and
actor (Kurt Russell) that helped make _Escape from New York_ a cult classic.

_The Thing_ is taken from one of the best SF short novels ever written, a
Golden Age work by John Campbell entitled "Who Goes There?." There are some
changes which in my view strengthen the storyline (surprising for a Hollywood
script). The film is also a remake of an old (and now hokey) horror movie.

The story takes place in an isolated antarctic research station.  As the film
begins, a dog shows up chased by a seeming madman in a helicopter.  When the
man accidently shoots one of the station personnel in an attempt to kill the
dog, he is shot to death by one of the researchers.  The dog wanders around
the station for a few hours before being put in the kennel with the other
dogs.  When he is, strange things begin to happen.

Meanwhile MacReady (Kurt Russell), the taciturn helicopter pilot, hops over
to the madman's point of origin, a Norwegian research station.	There he
discovers that everyone is dead.  Some of the bodies are bizarrely changed,
others the result of bloodily painful suicide.	Slowly, as the evidence comes
in, MacReady learns that the Norwegians found an ancient spacecraft beneath
the ice that contained an alien capable of assimilating and becoming any
species, from dog to human.  As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that
not everyone at the research station is human anymore.......

The story moves at a more leisurely pace than some of Carpenter's other
tales, since the viewer needs more information to understand what is going
on. Characters are boldly-drawn, just this side of being stereotypes, but
MacReady, whose character screams Vietnam vet, is given an introspective side
which doesn't quite save him from becoming the cliched hard-edged, gruff
hero.

The special effects are excellent and have held up well, although there are
some fairly silly inconsistencies that are probably necessary to increase the
horror factor.	For example, people's bodies split open and the alien pops
out a la the film _Alien_.  Why?  The alien is not _inside_ the person, the
alien _is_ the person.	The sound effects are wonderful, especially in the
scene where one of the station personnel, fleeing the station during his
"change," suddenly reveals he is an alien.  Tiresomely, as in too many other
movies, the horrifying aliens look like insects.  Is there no other form they
can take?

Carpenter's direction is competent and the tension builds well, following the
original story more or less faithfully in general right up to the end, where
there is a radical departure.  Unlike Campbell's original, in which the good
guys win out by a nose, Carpenter's version is both bloodier and more
ambiguous, requiring much more sacrifice.  In that sense, the movie is more
realistic than the original story.  In my judgement, the changes Carpenter
made in the plot make it a much stronger story.  Additionally, the
understated score by a veteran movie composer is a winner.

Carpenter resists well the urge to Hollywoodize this classic. There is no love
story here (no female characters), no redemptive ending and no blond-haired,
blue-eyed people save the world.  Instead, a bunch of relatively real people
muddle their way through, fouling up right and left, led by a hero who is
constantly off balance.

_The Thing_ is one of my personal favorites.  I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
Always a solid rental choice.

Copyright 1998 by Michael A. Turton

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