Continuing on with our Halloween celebration, I’m pleased to be doing my first ever reader request article! I’m happy to say that this movie was pretty much up my alley in terms of the types of horror movies that I towards which I tend to gravitate. John Carpenter’s The Thing is an old and crusty classic that’s been capturing the imaginations of and creeping out film goers for over three decades. It’s considered a benchmark for creature effects and makeup special effects even to this day, and in most regards, it’s earned every accolade that it’s been given. Let’s take a closer look at this cinematic classic.
This movie starts with some highly enjoyable stereotype 80s horror music, composed by Ennio Morricone. I’m not pointing out the stereotype as a bad thing in this case. It actually sets the tone extremely well, and it really helped to get me into the mindset that I’m watching an 80s film, which I enjoy. And Morricone is a musical giant. Look him up. He’s done some amazing things during his career. Anyway, during the title sequence, we see a spaceship crash to Earth. I’m told that this sequence actually tries to mimic the sequence from The Thing from Another World as closely as it could, the latter being the film that originally adapted the novel upon which both movies are based first. I think that’s a nice little nod, and it makes me curious to watch the other film to see how they both stack up to one another. But I digress. After the title, we’re shown that it’s 1982, and we’re in Antarctica. Then we see a wolf running across the snowy scenery. That’s about when my brain left the building. I couldn’t help getting stuck on the fact that wolves are not indigenous to Antarctica and so I shouldn’t be seeing the thing in front of me. Then we see a helicopter following the wolf and a person trying to shoot the wolf from the helicopter. This was also really off putting because the person shooting the rifle was such a terrible shot. Not to spoil too much, but that Norwegian was the worst plot device ever. In the first five minutes, we see him fail to shoot a wolf with a high power rifle that has a scope, drop a grenade next to his helicopter, which gets destroyed, and fail to shoot the wolf with that rifle from ten feet away. Luckily, he’s put out of his misery by an American with a six shooter.Dude was beyond inept.
The American doctor guy and MacReady, played by Kurt Russell, and his epic eye liner decide to go to the Norwegian camp to investigate. They find the camp destroyed, and salvage a few things that weren’t destroyed, which is how we learn that the Norwegians found something not of this world earlier in the season that they tried to destroy. There’s a lot of bickering, and shouting, and people die gruesomely as the Americans try to figure out just exactly what they’re dealing with. Eventually, they learn that the Norwegians uncovered an extraterrestrial being that mimics the form of creatures with which it comes in contact. It does this at the cellular level by assimilating the cells of the host and copying their cells. This led me to ask in a very serious and not demeaning tone, “Is this an AIDS metaphor?” Please feel free to discuss. I know that had just become a fairly big thing at the time, and so it’s possible. Eventually, the last men standing are able to figure out who the last ‘things’ are, or so they think, there’s a final confrontation, and Kurt Russell uses his spic eye liner to blow up the whole camp. If this synopsis seems brief, it’s not due to lack of interest, it’s because I’m not entirely certain just how to explain everything.
The movie is really good. Let’s get that out of the way right now. It’s just very… hard to explain… At least in terms of the story details. In broader strokes, it may not be quite as hard so let’s pull back a bit. The whole movie is a science fiction, horror, mystery. We’re given just enough information at a time to keep us engaged without giving too much away. There’s a lot that happens off screen that adds to the suspense, but that has to happen off screen in order to maintain that effect. That could be considered a small mark against the film. However, it’s that not knowing everything as a viewer that keeps you wanting to know more so it could also be a small mark for the movie as well. There are some really amazing things going on in this movie that are worth mentioning. First, there’s a lot of ambiguity to the story. Things are not always presented as absolutes, and things that could be taken for granted can’t be because things aren’t as they seem to be. Second, there’s some really clever mechanisms being used where dialog will be used to describe something that may be is a little too gruesome to show in a scene, but then it’s shown anyway, and the effect is that the impact is actually increased because the dialog just didn’t do enough justice to whatever was being described. Third, the tone is super bleak, and the color palette as well as the use of shadow lend themselves to that feel extremely well.
Now let’s talk about what everyone has been talking about for the last thirty years because I really wouldn’t be doing this movie any justice if I didn’t. The special effects in this movie are gorgeous. If you’ve read some of my earlier stuff, you know that I’m not a huge fan of movies using special effects to cover for deficiencies in other areas, but in this movie, the special effects absolutely sell the film. We first see the titular thing as it’s trying to turn itself into another wolf, presumably into an entire group of wolves. When I got my first look at it, my initial thought was, “That’s it. That’s what we’re supposed to be afraid of?” Then there’s a cut, and then it cuts back, and holy crap! When it cuts back the second time to the creature, I knew that I was in for a treat. The gore, and the copious usage of KY are just astonishing. It’s no wonder that people still buzz about this to this day. The level of detail used in representing partially assimilated people, and the amount of realism in the gore really sets a high mark. And the most amazing part is that the movie manages to up the ante at every opportunity, but it never goes so far as to cheapen the effect that it has on the viewer. Every time that there’s a scene with an alien, you feel just as disturbed and grossed out as the first time. It truly is a thing to behold.
It’s a good thing that those special effects were as amazing as they were because I still found a couple of rough spots with the film. I didn’t feel like the tension carried very well throughout. The movie definitely has its tense moments, but I didn’t feel like it was built up exceptionally well, especially in context of the physical feats being pulled off. The pacing was just a little weird for me. It started out slow as the mystery was presented and clues were given, but it never really picked up as much as I thought it should, again in order to build that tension. While the color palette works well with the tone, there was too much use of that blue/orange contrast that’s become such a joke in recent years. I noticed the reuse of the helicopter. I know it was just to keep the budget down, but at least change the numbers on the thing! I think that about covers the rough stuff, and I wouldn’t want to dwell on those for too long anyway because the movie gets a lot of things right too.
In the positive column, I seriously enjoyed the score. Ennio Morricone is already a favorite of mine, but I felt like the score for this movie was really dynamic and that it did a lot to solidify the movie’s hold on me as a viewer. The dialog was, for the most part, well written and well delivered. There may have been a little bit more shouting than I felt was necessary, but the dialog was often witty when I needed a laugh, and as I already said, the movie gave me just barely what I needed in order to keep up. The set design was awesome. I don’t usually mention this sort of thing because, honestly, you don’t see a lot of movies these days taking special care to do anything amazing with set design, but I really enjoyed the feeling of claustrophobia that the movie tries to impart. It has the effect of amplifying suspense to me, and it makes things creepier when one doesn’t know everything about their surroundings. I loved that Wilford Brimley was in this movie! And he was a doctor no less! When he was doing the autopsy and talking about healthy kidneys, I was just like, “Yeah Wilford Brimley would know all about healthy kidneys and diabeetus!” If anything, this movie could have used a little more of him. I also loved the one liners that Kurt Russell got in this film. When he’s playing chess at the beginning and he calls the computer a b*tch. Who even does that? Kurt Russell does, that’s who! Then when he beats up the monster at the end and he’s all “Well F you too!” He really plays the badass well, despite the overuse of eye liner. In all, I would really recommend that you watch this movie. It has so much to offer, and it’s a really enjoyable ride throughout. And stay tuned next week because we’re going to be looking at another classic horror movie from days gone by!
No comments:
Post a Comment