The Thing (1982)

 

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John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is one of those movies that have always flown under the radar for me. That is, until I watched a documentary series by James Cameron a few years ago on science fiction movies that made a lot out of this movie. It looked like a total miss that I never watched it and, knowing it would come up on the List, I braced myself with patience.

Now, I have finally watched it and I can see why a lot of people like it, it has a lot going for it. The reason I am not jumping up and down is that “Alien” was there already three years before and did it better.

The peace on an American research station in Antarctica is disturbed when a dog on the run from some crazy Norwegians seek shelter at the base. The staff find the Norwegians a lot more disturbing than the dog, so they kill the Norwegians and take in the dog. Bad choice. The dog turns out to be a shapeshifting monster from outer space (the “Thing”), which kills and then imitate its victim. It is impossible to tell who is human and who is a space monster and consequently paranoia runs amok.

The helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) takes charge and even device a method to recognize who are humans, but as more and more die, it becomes clear that no one will get out of this alive and, more importantly, the alien must be kept away from human civilization.

Bleak stuff.

“The Thing” is essentially a “Ten little Indians” story. One by one the staff is taken out and the focus of the movie is partly on the paranoia everybody gets caught up in and partly the gory attacks of the monster. And it is really a focus to the extent that there is little else to the movie. Most of the characters are rather flat, there is room for no other topic, but who is next? On the upside, those two elements are done brilliantly.

The monster itself is alien, awful, gory and cunning and the special effects displaying all this are nothing less than amazing. This is a tour de force on what was possible before CGI and even the most outrageous of the displays look real and believable and for that reason so much scarier. I am neither a big expert nor a fan of horror movies, but my amateurish guess is that this is up there among the best when it comes to the monster.

Paranoia always works best in an enclosed space with a limited number of people and here we get both. It is quite amazing that it is possible to fill so much of the movie’s running time with people circling each other with ever increasing madness, but there you are, and it is quite successful as that.

The problem, as I wrote above, is that “Alien” did much the same in 1979 and both Nostromo and the Xenomorph were cooler than the Antarctic research station and the Thing. There is a strong element of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” here as well, but again, it becomes a reboot of something that was itself hugely successful. Combining those two stories may be inspired and my guess is that this will be enough for many viewers, particularly when done with this intensity. My problem is just that I keep thinking about the movie I would rather watch, missing that dark, quiet, sneaky threat. That sense that if you turn around, it is right behind you.

Ultimately, this makes “The Thing” good, but not great for me. I understand why it is liked, if not loved, but I cannot give it that last appraisal. Something about it is just too thin.