Day Thirty-One: John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)
And so we reach the end. I, after some debate, have decided to conclude our little month long thing here with one of my very favorite movies of any genre, John Carpenter’s The Thing. There’s a strange thing about Carpenter’s film, I re-watch it once a year, and I always forget some of the surprises of the movie, the identity of some of the attackers, the timing of some of the scares. The Thing is an almost incomparably satisfying shocker, and it’s a horror movie that keeps on giving throughout the years.
I remember that creepy VHS cover of The Thing in the video store when I was child, showing a man in a heavy coat with a face that appears to be a pure beam of light. The cover promised the ultimate in alien terror, and I was too young to find that honor dubious. I also remember early conversations with my father regarding The Thing; he considered it a gory, junky reworking of a movie he held dear, the 1951 Howard Hawks film of the same name. At the time my dad’s opinion was scripture, and I assumed that it was some mental infirmity that kept me from understanding that the 1951 version was better when the Carpenter movie chilled me so much more.
The mental infirmities issue may have never been entirely worked out, but it has nothing to do with preferring the Carpenter approach to the story. I don’t wish to have a Thing cage match here, I think the Hawks version is very good, and holds up remarkably well. But Carpenter’s is scarier, and takes a track similar to one of the incarnations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or perhaps an early Cronenberg film, the thing isn’t a giant vegetable space man. It’s you, or your buddy; unless it’s provoked and forced to reveal an ever changing true form that’s an incalculably hideous combination of every specie it’s come in contact with.
Carpenter’s film doesn’t have the deeper sociological scares of a Cronenberg or Body Snatchers movie; it’s a mean, single minded thing that’s only interested in scaring you. Carpenter is a long time Howard Hawks aficionado, and he’s revisited Hawks subject matter time and time again, so it’s a wonderful bit of poetic justice that he finds his masterpiece in a remake of a Hawks film. Like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Thing is one of those magic movies where everything goes right. Carpenter’s usual habits, which can be mannered and overly ticky in lesser films, serve him in The Thing.
The bare character development fits the limited time frame of the story, and adds an element of impersonality that makes the thing’s assimilation that much scarier. The clean, uncluttered, very obviously composed framing suits the wide open Antarctic desolation beautifully, the minimal (usually synth) score (by Ennio Morricone, though he’s been directed by Carpenter to do a Carpenter impersonation.) is the best to grace a Carpenter film. I remember humming both The Thing and The Shining scores at an early age, I couldn’t get them out of my head.
Russell gives his most authoritative performance here as MacReady. It’s inarguable that Russell is, disappointing filmography be damned, one of our definitive badasses. It’s also no accident that he was asked to do a John Wayne impersonation in Death Proof. Russell has the same man’s man vibe; an I don’t give a shit because I don’t have to give a shit electricity that can’t be faked. Russell is also a better actor than Wayne, funnier, looser, and can play more of an everyman without compromising said badassery.
MacReady is more effective than Snake Plissken because there’s no quote marks around him, MacReady isn’t a goof, and his motivations are fueled by a basic, unglorified self-preservation that this picture’s script builds to quite elegantly. Russell has a few great tough guy lines here, my favorite (I’m paraphrasing) being his response to Wilford Brimley’s plea that he doesn’t know who to trust: “Trust is a tough thing to come by these days.” It’s a very movie line, but it’s delivered as a desperate throwaway, Russell’s attempt to keep face in an increasingly terrifying situation.
Hawks famously said that a good movie should have three good scenes and no bad ones. This is the one Carpenter film that passes that test. Besides the exchange I just mentioned between Russell and Brimley, there’s the justifiably famous “alien blood test” scene, and the ending, which is one of the best of all horror movies. Russell and Keith David sit down in the snow and watch as the remains of their compound, their only shelter and means of heat, slowly die. They have a drink, and smile, and slowly drift towards death themselves. After all the carnage that has taken place, these two are allowed the dignified demise of a Howard Hawks hero. Except one of the heroes may not be human, and he may not be dead. Only contagious.
★★★★
