by Jake Hjort, Contributing Writer
Welcome back, fellow time travelers, to another edition of 20th Century Flicks! This month, in a continued effort to check classic cinema off of my list of shame, I’m diving back to the year 1982 to watch John Carpenter’s The Thing. With Halloween just around the corner, I figured it was due time to check out a classic horror film, and there was nothing higher on my watchlist than The Thing. To be completely honest, I’m not really much of a horror guy — I frighten really easily and I don’t enjoy being scared, so I’ve never really seen the appeal of subjecting myself to that. However, one of the few horror subgenres that I really can appreciate are monster films with great character design, so this is one that I’ve been itching to watch for a while now.
Set in Antarctica, The Thing tells the story of an American research base that finds themselves facing a hostile extraterrestrial that can take the form of any of them. First discovered by Norwegian scientists after having been frozen in the ice for centuries, the Thing, having taken the form of a husky, flees towards the American base while being pursued by a Norwegian helicopter. In the panic, the Norwegians are all killed and the Americans take in the husky, not knowing the terrors that it beholds. To figure out what is going on, helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) leads an exhibition to the Norwegian base, where he discovers the carnage that the Thing has wrought. Upon returning, MacReady and the rest of the crew watch as the Thing fully takes over the dog’s body, unleashing the horrifying alien creature that had dwelled within. From then on out, the crew scrambles to contain the Thing, all while combatting the mania and paranoia that sets in as they realize that the alien could be within any of them and that nobody can be trusted.
Without a doubt, the MVP of this film is special makeup effects designer Rob Bottin. The design of Thing is one of the most interesting that I’ve ever seen in a film, with the writhing tentacles and disfigured, near-human features arising in new forms with each transformation. Each iteration of the Thing feels new and unique, but at the same time, there’s a level of cohesion to the design that reminds you that this is the same creature every time. From a stomach rapidly developing jaws to bite a man’s arms off to a decapitated head sprouting legs and scurrying off into the dark, these practical effects are as awe-inspiring as they are grotesque.
That being said, the “cool factor” of the effects certainly does not diminish the scariness of the film. Again, I’m a bit of wimp when it comes to horror, so I may not be the best barometer for the absolute quality of the scares, but I was thoroughly frightened many times throughout the film. There’s obviously the gore, body horror, and jump scare that serve to spike your fear and get you to squirm in your skin or jump out of your seat, but I also have to applaud Carpenter for keeping a high level of basal tension throughout the film as well. This is due in part to Ennio Morricone’s great score and the claustrophobic set design of the Antarctic base, but it largely comes from the character drama. This isn’t the first film to tell a Body Snatchers-esque story, and it certainly isn’t the last, but the paranoia that the characters feel is palpable. You never quite know who you can trust and who you can’t, which begs the question: Who is a greater danger to the crew, the Thing or the men desperately trying to eradicate it?
That being said, I feel like this tension could have been even more effective if the characters on the base were better developed. Now, this isn’t to say that the performances are bad — Russell is solid, and I really enjoyed Wilford Brimley and Keith David in supporting roles as the crew’s biologist and mechanic, respectively — it’s just that the writing leaves a lot to be desired. Despite the relatively contained, intimate setting, I never really felt like I understood anyone on the crew. What led them to seek out work on a remote Antarctic research base, and what are their dreams and aspirations? What aspects of their behavior might we have seen before the attack that may have informed how they would respond to the Thing? Who are already friends, and what distrust already exists among the crew? These are all questions that I asked myself while watching the film, none of which are ever answered.
In a way, The Thing feels like something of an upside-down version of Jaws: The creature effects are incredible and take center stage, while the character work takes a back seat. Sure, the shark is scary and the action is fun, but the reason I go back to Jaws time and time again is the incredible depth of the characters, reveling not in the thrill of the hunt but in the quiet conversations of the night. The Thing is certainly a solid film and I’m sure those creature effects will continue to permeate my thoughts (and nightmares), but it just doesn’t have that extra level of depth that can take it from a good experience to a transcendental one.
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