The Thing is a 1982 sci fi horror directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur and Donald Moffatt
For me, John Carpenter’s The Thing (a remake of the 1951 The Thing from Another World in turn based on the John Campbell short story Who Goes There?) is pretty much a perfect film.
It has solid performances, direction, score, special effects, production design. It’s atmospheric, tense, gory, and scary – everything a good horror film should be. And it doesn’t insult audience intelligence by spoon feeding us plot points and explaining everything (well, besides the computer simulation scene…but I’ll get to that doozy a bit later), something most of today’s mainstream horror films do way too much of.
It’s also a really effective examination of paranoia and the darkest side of human nature.
The film starts out by showing an alien space craft entering Earth’s atmosphere. We don’t know where the ship has come from or why. We don’t know whether it’s crash landing or if it’s come on purpose. We don’t know, because it doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know.
We’re then straight into the story – some seemingly insane Norwegian guys show up at an American research station in the Antarctic, chasing a Husky into the camp, bent on destroying the dog. The understandably confused Americans try to stay out of the way as one of the Norwegians starts firing at the dog, but are forced to kill him after one of his wild stray shots catches one of them in the leg. The other guy blows himself up with a slippery grenade (I love the comedic way he reacts as the grenade flies out of his hand – one of many moments in this film that makes me chuckle).
Helicopter pilot R J MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Doc (Richard Dysart) fly to the Norwegian camp to investigate but find it deserted. They also find evidence that the Norwegians found something, presumably some kind of alien life form, frozen in the ice near their camp.
Back at the base, Husky handler Richard Masur has taken the dog in. But little do our heroes know that the dog is actually The Thing – an alien life form that absorbs other beings and then perfectly imitates them. As the dog has been roaming free around the camp, any one of the men may have been infected. Then Blair (Wilford Brimley) using an amazingly advanced computer simulation, figures out that the alien’s aim is to escape Antarctica and reach populated areas, eventually absorbing all life on our planet. MacReady (or Mac as he’s known throughout the film) reluctantly takes leadership of the group as paranoia sets in and they are cut off from the outside world by a storm. There’s nothing they can do but watch each other closely, and wait.
We have the perfect setting for a thriller here – an isolated Antarctic research station. It’s established early on that radio contact with the outside world is haphazard even in good conditions. It’s also nicely set up early on that there is some friction within the group.
The film has some fantastically creepy moments. I especially love the dog (the canine actor’s name was Jed). He is so quietly menacing. The way he stands at the window and watches Mac and Doc return from the Norwegian camp. And the way he stalks from room to room down a corridor in a quiet scene where he first infects a member of the crew. He is such a well-trained animal. Watch him carefully; he does these weird pauses at the doorways, taking his time. He doesn’t behave like a dog stalking prey. He’s like a killer looking for a victim.
The character moments are great too. Carpenter managed to pull together a great bunch of actors. I love how sozzled and nuts Kurt Russell is at first. When we first see him he’s swilling scotch and talking out loud to his computer. As he plays chess with the computer opponent he remarks “you’re starting to lose it aren’t you?” and I can’t help but wonder if he’s commenting on his own mental state. Then when he loses the game he tips his scotch into the computer and calls it a “cheating bitch.” He also wears a really wacky sombrero while flying his helicopter and has a hopeless sense of geography. He not once but twice mistakes the Norwegian guys for Swedes, even shouting “Hey Sweden!” when they go to the deserted camp. He really is enjoyably nuts.
I love how on edge some of the other characters are too. Wilford Brimley is great as Blair. He starts out the “voice of reason” character, the most level-headed of the bunch. But then there’s his scene with the computer simulation. His computer miraculously figures out that the Thing is able to replicate life forms by imitating them on a cellular level, and strangely the computer is also able to deduce that it’ll take “27,000 hours from first contact” for the Thing to take over the entire planet. That computer is a one amazing piece of technology, what is the program called exactly, Microsoft Exposition Pro?
But what I like most about this scene is how Blair handles the news – he goes completely off his rocker. He grabs a revolver from his desk drawer, a bottle of vodka, and heads for the radio room to smash up their only means of communicating with the outside world. You can kind of see where he’s coming from – I mean, he figures it’s probably too late to save themselves and their responsibility now is to save the rest of humankind. But I also just love a character going round the bend and Brimley pulls this off in such a believable and hilarious way I just can’t help but giggle like a loon every time. It also leads to a great moment later in the film. The crew manage to subdue him from his rampage and they lock him in a small hut outside. When they go to check on him later, he’s got a noose hanging from the rafters. They can see he’s gone completely crazy, but he starts to plead with them to let him back inside, speaking in this sort of mental patient-calm way. Brimley is magnificent in this scene – he strikes a really nice balance between being calmly rational and completely unhinged.
But I also like what this means for the rest of the crew. With their sanest member going around the bend, what chance do the rest of them have?
There are other moments that make me laugh. Like Nauls (T K Carter) roller-skating into the room after the Norwegians have just opened fire on them and remarking, “Maybe we’re at war with Norway?!” I wish I was loopy enough to show up at work one day and make an announcement like that.
The performances are just universally awesome. Donald Moffatt is great as their initial leader. I love the look on his face after he shoots the Norwegian guy dead. He is obviously really disappointed at having to do it. He emerges from the hut and looks at the body with a resigned sadness that breaks my heart a little every time, especially given the insensitive comment a bit afterwards from Palmer (David Clennon) that “El Capitan” couldn’t wait to use his “pop gun”. I love Keith David as Childs too. Once the shit hits the fan his first suggestion is always to just kill those they suspect of being infected. His attitude is pretty much “fuck you, I know I’m not the Thing so that means one of you guys must be”.
The way the characters’ personalities clash is a great examination of the effects of paranoia on the human mind. We come to know and like these characters, but Carpenter keeps us detached, and this allows for great moments like a character posing the question “if you were the Thing, would you know it?”
Carpenter also masterfully dishes out the red herrings and genuine clues as to who might be infected. From subtle glances, to strange behaviour, to characters disappearing at odd times with no explanation. My favourite moment in this regard is the long johns. Mac finds a pair of thermal underwear that is torn to pieces because whoever was wearing them was killed and replicated. But the name tag is missing. I love the way he sighs resignedly, “They could be anybody’s…”
And though we never know what to expect, none of the requisite horror film ‘scares’ come off as cheap shocks, and none of the characters feel one-dimensional.
I can’t write a review of this film without of course mentioning Rob Bottin’s practical effects. The creature models and gore effects are just awesome. My favourite is of course the scene involving defibrillator paddles and a detached head. Upon seeing the head, which has sprouted legs like a spider and is now running across the floor, David Clennon utters my favourite line in the entire film. I always laugh, because not only is his line delivery fantastic, but it’s exactly what I was thinking the first time I saw that scene.
It would also be remiss of me to not mention the blood test scene. It’s so incredibly awesome that even when I watch the film now, having seen it more than a dozen times, I still struggle to remember every time who is actually the infected one at this point. The scene is a textbook example of how to stage a suspenseful moment.
I watch certain films at certain times, and The Thing is one of my favourite winter films. I especially like to put it on late at night when it’s windy outside. I love the atmosphere. I love Kurt Russell in a goofy sombrero. I love characters going bananas. And I love horror movies that scare the beejesus out of me but also make me think. The Thing is a great film and one I revisit often. Definitely a great way to spend two hours.
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