John Carpenter's The Thing

The Thing

Directed by John Carpenter

When I compiled my Favorite Horror Films list back in October, a lot of readers were surprised that John Carpenter's The Thing wasn't listed. There was a perfectly acceptable reason for that - I simply hadn't seen the film yet. Now I have.

The Thing tells the story of a team of United States scientists and crew members who are stationed in Antarctica in the winter of 1982. One day, a dog is chased into their camp by a man shooting at it from a circling Norwegian helicopter. The dog survives, but the two men aboard the helicopter do not. After a short time, it's learned that a Norwegian expedition based nearby had discovered an alien ship frozen in the ice and had unwittingly let loose a dangerous creature capable of assimilating other life forms. This alien, the titular thing, begins to wreak havoc on the US base and its inhabitants.

Frequent Carpenter collaborator Kurt Russell plays the lead role, a gruff and macho helicopter pilot named R.J. MacReady. Russell almost always delivers a solid performance and is no different here. MacReady is a cool guy (despite wearing possibly the stupidest looking hat in movie history) who is quick with a witty retort and likes his whiskey straight, often straight from the bottle. Russell seems to have been born to play these types of characters and performs quite well, but doesn't do much of anything unexpected or overly impressive.

The rest of the cast consists of lesser actors playing less interesting characters. There's the guy in charge (Donald Moffat, with a face begging to be punched), the doctor (Richard Dysart), the loose cannon (Keith David), the dog lover (Richard Masur), the coward (Thomas Waites), the cook (T.K. Carter) and various, and mostly nondescript, scientists played by David Clennon, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, and Joel Polis.

The only standout in the cast, besides Russell, is Wilfred Brimley as Doctor Blair. Blair is the smartest man in camp and discovers what the alien is capable of, but also suffers a mental breakdown because of it. Brimley is an actor mostly known now for playing crotchety, old characters and Blair is more of the same. It's a testament to his charisma that Brimley is able to transcend his type-casting and deliver an interesting and layered performance.

The Thing handles a lot of aspects very well, despite letting me down on the acting side of things. One high point is the score, from cinema icon Ennio Morricone. It's a perfect combination of notes for a horror film and greatly adds to the overall tension and suspense, but does so without being heavy handed or overpowering.

The special effects and makeup effects might be the most famous part of The Thing and while they don't appear as realistic as similar effects would today, they still hold up nicely. There's no shortage of body transformations or gore and all of these moments are quite effective. One of my favorite examples of the great effects work is when one character is being examined after seemingly suffering a heart attack. As CPR is being performed on the unresponsive body, the man's chest burst opens and chomps off the doctor's arms at the elbows. It was a truly shocking moment and it jolted me upright. 

My main complaint with The Thing is the writing lets down an interesting concept. If the characters had been more fleshed out and diverse, they would have been memorable and it would have been easier to get engaged with them. As it is, I didn't really care too much about most of the characters, so I wasn't invested enough to care whether they lived or died. The script, written by Bill Lancaster - son of legendary actor Burt Lancaster - hovers at or slightly above the line of "average horror film" for the duration, with only a scene or two that worked really well, in my opinion.

One such scene is where MacReady is trying to determine which of the men has been assimilated by the alien life force. He comes up with an ingenious method: he draws blood from everyone and "tests" it by touching the pool of blood with a burning hot piece of metal. If the sample doesn't react to the heat, that donor is obviously not infected. The scene plays out methodically and really ratchets up the tension. As the viewer, you just know that someone is going to be infected, but the suspense is palpable as you wait to discover who it is.

Despite having lackluster characters and dialogue, The Thing is able to create quite a bit of tension and suspense. I think this owes more to Carpenter's direction and Todd Ramsay's editing (and the aforementioned score) than Lancaster's writing, though. The camera placement, shot length, and music combine well and the tension from the character's paranoia is evident throughout the film.

Another complaint of mine is the dark cinematography during the scenes set at night inside the camp buildings. It's one thing to create a dark atmosphere, which can help improve the mood of a film like this, but it's another matter altogether to have scene after scene of nearly indistinguishable characters and surroundings. If everything had been a shade or two lighter, the dark atmosphere could have been retained and the clarity of the film would have been much greater.

As much as I disliked the cinematography when the action was taking place inside, I equally loved the beautiful shots captured of northern British Columbia, which stood in for Antartica. I'm a sucker for snowy, desolate landscapes and The Thing doesn't disappoint. The sense of isolation and despair is evident when you see the relatively tiny camp surrounded on all sides by vast stretches of snow and mountains.

I went into my viewing of The Thing with moderate hopes. I had attempted to watch the film once before (about a year ago) and didn't make it far before shutting it off. After all those comments in regards to it being one of the best horror films of all-time, I decided to give it second chance. I'm glad I did. It's a fine film, but not one that I would consider a classic and it certainly isn't going to dethrone any of my favorite horror films.