THE INDISPENSIBLES - #20: John Carpenter’s THE THING
If you wanted to give no other credit to The Thing - and I’m talking about ignoring the atmospheric score, the tight screenplay, the solid, completely unflashy direction and the brilliant testosterone-soaked all-male cast – then at least give it the credit that it does the nigh on impossible; it gives remakes a good name!
And not just a good name either. This is a film that all but removes, in my humble opinion and I know many disagree with me, the original from my consciousness. More so because, whilst a remake of the 1951 Christian Nyby film The Thing from Another World, John Carpenter’s film is a more faithful adaptation of the original novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr., which started it all and in turn inspired the 1951 film.
Any Carpenter fan (and I think we can agree that there’s no bigger one then me!) will probably tell you that The Thing is his greatest movie. I place Halloween higher, personally, but I still adore this. I still think it is one of the greatest films ever made. Hence its appearance in this column.
As has passed into fact, The Thing flopped on its original release, opening in 8th place at the box office and not rising any higher. Its lack of success has rather bizarrely been blamed on the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which landed around the same time. Clearly Americans got handed a choice between wanting “good” aliens or “bad” and they went with the former. Hmm… we are talking about the same country that considers Meet The Spartans as worthy of being number one at the box office so, all bets are off, and I guess this is possible.
However, the film – Part One of what Carpenter considers to be his ‘Apocalypse Trilogy’ with the enormously under-valued Prince of Darkness and the surprisingly mediocre In The Mouth Of Madness making up the trio - has gone on to gain a cult following over the years. As of October this year, it holds the position of #171 of the Top 250 Movies of All Time in over at The Internet Movie Database.
In the midst of Antarctica, the scientists and workers of a small American research base are shocked when a helicopter begins to circle their camp, chasing and shooting at a dog. When the helicopter is destroyed and the passengers are killed by accident, the dog is let into the base and the American’s begin to investigate what has occurred. Staff pilot J.R MacReady (Kurt Russell) offers to travel to the nearby Norwegian base that the helicopter originated from, and find out what has happened.
On arrival, he finds that the place has been totally destroyed and a mangled body, that looks as though it was once that of a human person, resides in the wreckage. Bringing the remains of the body back to test on, things suddenly get out of control; the dog morphs horribly into a strange creature that attacks the researchers and the station crew come to realise that they are dealing with an alien with the power to transform and take the appearance of anybody. So who is infected already, and who can be trusted?
The Thing was written by Burt Lancaster’s son Bill and equal credit should go to him as well as to John Carpenter. His screenplay is economical in all the right ways (there’s not a single word that feels like “exposition” in the whole thing!) but gives us the most amazing, fully rounded cast of characters too; Kurt Russell as R. J. MacReady, Wilfred Brimley as Dr. Blair, Keith David as Childs, T.K. Carter as Nauls; David Clennon as Palmer, Richard Dysart as Dr. Copper, Charles Hallahan as Vance Norris, Peter Maloney as George Bennings. Richard Masur as Clark, Donald Moffat as Garry, Joel Polis as Fuchs and Thomas G. Waites as Windows. The only female presence in the entire film is the voice of a chess computer, voiced by Carpenter regular, then-wife and all round hottie (still to this day!) Adrienne Barbeau.
The film is just wall-to-wall pure atmosphere. The sense of dread and unrelenting tension is so masterfully delivered that some universities teach using this film as a visual textbook. Best of all, The Thing was ahead of its time in terms of the visual effects techniques it was using, mastered by Rob Bottin, yet it never feels ‘showy’. The effects never over-shadow the story or the characters. And that’s a compliment and a half when you consider this is a film whereby heads tear away from their bodies, grow legs and sprint off or chests burst open, grow teeth and feast on peoples arms.
Like Carpenter’s other ‘misunderstood’ dalliance with Kurt Russell, Big Trouble In Little China, fans yearn for a sequel that will most likely never come. Unlike with Big Trouble In Little China (there’s a script, no one wants to make it, end of!) we are continuously teased with the suggestion of a sequel to The Thing. When a sequel script first leaked, it used the film’s ‘alternate’ ending as a jumping off point to tell a shoddy Aliens style tale of marines going in to a nearby town to the American base (nearby town? Did the author understand the term “isolated”?) and having to ‘cleanse’ everyone when ‘the thing’ takes over. Fans wrongly assumed that the script was jumping off from the much-heralded but never seen “happy” ending (in which MacReady has been rescued and administered a blood test, proving that he is still human) that was filmed but never used, and they couldn’t understand why Russell wasn’t involved.
But that’s not the real, or at least the “official”, ‘alternate’ ending. The real one existed on the final film print up until a matter of weeks before it was first shown; a “Thing” has taken the form of one of the sled dogs once again. We see it leave the American base, start walking before looking back at the burning camp at dawn before continuing on into the Antarctic wilderness, ready to find its next ‘form’. If you ever see The Thing in its edited-for-TV version (i.e. heavily reduced gore, violence and profanity) you will see this ending, and opening narration (!) too. Unlike the actually-extended TV ‘edit’ of Halloween (with scenes of Michael Myers as a child – screw you Rob Zombie!), this version isn’t readily available with the DVD of the movie.
Attempts to get a sequel off the ground based on this script faltered. But when Carpenter set to work on co-writing his own sequel script, things (he he!) started to heat up, especially when both Kurt Russell and Keith David said they were going to be involved. Carpenter proposed an idea that would explain both actors age by having frostbite on their face due to the elements until rescued. The radio signal being successfully transmitted by Childs, before Blair destroyed the communications room, in the original is said to have actually gotten through and the sequel brings us in after the explosion of the base camp, with the rescue team arriving and finding MacReady and Childs still alive. Act Two sees a new outbreak in a more populated area and both surviving characters being enlisted by the government to go back in as “advisors”.
Money issues in terms of both budget and fees for Carpenter quickly nixed this idea and developments on The Thing 2 fell through. There was a tentative arrangement to make a “prequel” with the team responsible for Slither and the Dawn of the Dead remake, but that has gone quiet. As has the plan for a four-hour mini-series sequel for The Sci-Fi Channel that, get this, had Carpenter’s approval and was said to be scripted by none other than Frank Darabont.
So The Thing will most probably have to stand alone. But this, most certainly, is no bad thing. Why taint it? And seeing as Carpenter’s The Thing is absolute science-fiction, horror perfection, it is most probably impossible for any sequel/prequel/mini-series to so much as equal its greatness. It’s a project fans twist themselves into a stew over, wanting and not-wanting in equal measures, in some ways at the same bloody time!
It’s a film that just about gives you everything that you could possibly want, save for a couple of strong chuckles here and there. It will terrify you, disgust you, put you on the edge of your seat, make you want to shout at the scream and hold on to the sides of your chair for the best horror thrill ride of the 80s!
Related Posts:
- THE INDISPENSIBLES - #16: DO THE RIGHT THING
- [DVD Review (R2)] THE JOHN CARPENTER COLLECTION
- THE INDISPENSIBLES - #15: HALLOWEEN
- John Carpenter and Nic Cage Sign Up To Get SCARED STRAIGHT!
- OFF THE SHELF - Issue # 2: THE JOHN CARPENTER COLLECTION
3 Responses to “THE INDISPENSIBLES - #20: John Carpenter’s THE THING”
My favorite movie period.
Also you should definitely check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT7AH4JyuNs
Ha Ha! That was ace! Where do you pick these things up fella?
You’re fast becoming my go-to-guy for “indispensible” twot like this!
Great stuff!
Oh you know, around.
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