#8: The Thing (1982)

"You guys think I'm crazy? Well, that's fine! Most of you don't know what's going on around here, but I'm damn well sure some of you do . . . you think that thing wanted to be an animal?! No dog's gonna make it a thousand miles through the cold! You don't understand- that thing wanted to be us! "

Antarctica, the first day of winter. An Alaskan sled dog is racing through the snow, pursued by a Norwegian helicopter. This bizarre chase comes to an end at an isolated American research station, where the Norwegians open up on the dog with a rifle, and attempt to blow it up with thermite charges- the reckless use of which results in both of their deaths. Unable to contact the mainland due to the weather, the American research team sends their own helicopter pilot (Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady) and chief medical officer (Richard Dysart as Copper) to investigate the nearby Norwegian camp. Upon arrival they find that the entire compound has been destroyed, and that its personnel are either missing or dead. Outside the camp, they discover the partially burnt remains of a twisted creature with vaguely human features. What in the world happened here?

Meanwhile, the mysterious sled dog has been quietly wandering around the American camp, seemingly forgotten . . .

I've probably seen The Thing (more appropriately known as John Carpenter's The Thing, as this is a remake of the 1951 film The Thing from Another World, which was itself an adaptation of the novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr.) at least fifty times, and it still manages to fascinate me. Much like Rosemary's Baby, The Thing's horror depends heavily upon the paranoia of its characters- its primary antagonist is a shape-shifting monster that is attempting to infect every member of the research team, and it can imitate its victims perfectly, so literally anyone in the film could be the Thing, a device that Carpenter uses masterfully. But its other strength as a horror film is in its overwhelming sense of isolation. There's no escape for these people, and they know it.

The Thing itself is a incredibly disturbing creature. Unlike any of the other shape-shifters that I have seen in films and television, who seem to be somewhat fluid in nature, The Thing's transformations are violent and grotesque. The familiar (to us) shapes of men or dogs are literally torn apart to accommodate whatever new form the The Thing might require: heads split apart to reveal toothed maws, spider-legs erupt from torsos, and multiple eye-balls blink at us from a bloody mass of viscera. Needless to say, its not pleasant, and the fact that this film came out in the days before computer generated imagery makes it even more uncomfortable to watch. So, hats off to you, special effects guys!

The other thing that impresses me about this film is the quality of its cast. Had it been made today (and there is, sigh, talk of a remake) I imagine that the ensemble of scientists would have been made up of C-List actors, and that at least one of them would have been an attractive woman to provide a love interest for the character of McReady. After all, this is a monster movie, right? Thankfully, Carpenter didn't see it that way, and assembled an excellent ensemble composed entirely of men, including Wilford Brimley, Donald Moffat, Keith David, and Richard Masur. They're all incredibly believable, and lend a great deal of verisimilitude to the situation.

I find it incredibly surprising that this film was pretty much universally panned when it originally came out- but its possible that it was a bit too ahead of its time, as it seems as though most of the complaints focus on the squick-factor of Thing itself, and not on the film's real strengths: mood, character development, and mystery. It's really too bad, because- had The Thing been a success- it's entirely possible that director John Carpenter (probably best known for the famous 1978 slasher-film Halloween) might have been regarded as a more lucrative director, and thus landed better deals than, say, 1983's Christine. On the flip side, however, who's to say that such a turn of events might have robbed us of such classics as Big Trouble In Little China, or They Live. Perhaps its best not to screw with history.

Check back tomorrow for #7!