The Thing (1982) - Reason #1 I Can't Completely Spit on All Remakes

Yeah, this year's theme doesn't really have a title. I considered 'The Octoberlypse' but it just...I don't know.

Anyway, as promised, it's time to dive right in on the opening round of Carpenter's trilogy – his 1982 remake/re-envisioning of The Thing From Another World.

I have to say up front – this is probably the hardest entry to write for this particular series, simply because so much has already been said for the movie that it's hard to find something new to add.

And with that disclaimer out of the way, Hell with it, I'll just come out and say it – it's not an especially hot take, but I count myself among the ranks of those who consider The Thing to be John Carpenter's best movie, an opinion that rewatching it for this run further cements.

I get why the film wasn't well received when it first came out (and it's easy to take for granted from 2019, but seriously – E.T. cast one Hell of a large shadow in 1982) so I won't drag the audiences and critics of the past for their take at the time, much as I disagree with it. It's saying something that, on this watch, I actively tried to find points in this film to have an issue with, and not only came away with nothing, but found some new good elements I had never caught before.

As much as the hug is appreciated here,
it was just too little too late for reaching the family crowds.

And for the number of times I've seen this movie, that is saying something.

So in singing this movie's praises, I'll have to start with one of the most obvious places, particularly as it's something we'll come back to in the next entries – the visual effects.

As of this writing, this movie is now a little shy of three years of turning 40. That's a window of time that can be downright ruthless in the field of visual effects. With that said, Rob Bottin's creature work in this movie has stood the test of time beautifully. In terms of the execution, the movie's effects hold up well under scrutiny, with some designs still looking good enough to be standalone art. As of this writing, I've seen the movie in a theater on several occasions, and rather than having flaws enhanced on the large screen, Bottin's monsters yield up a new level of detail that is both more impressive and more disturbing.

It speaks to Bottin's skill that this isn't
even an active monster in the movie, but it's still an enduring visual.

Beyond the technical skill, the idea driving the creation is a larger part of why the movie's endured. First for the obvious and unsettling idea that it can, in theory, be anyone at any time with almost no means of detection, and then for the additional level of horror that comes when its cover is blown and it no longer needs to hide. Many is the monster in horror that has lost its sting as a result of overexposure leading to diminished returns (as much as I love the first two movies in the series, Alien comes to mind here.) By comparison, Carpenter and Bottin give us a creature whose form changes vastly in each iteration. You're never given a chance within the film to get used to its appearance because it never takes the same shape twice and even when revealed is still an unpredictable threat.

Pitted against this mercurial alien, the cast assembled for the ill-fated team at Outpost 31 have just as much as the effects crew on their plate in terms of carrying the movie – a task they all live up to admirably under the circumstances. For a story steeped in the idea of paranoia, the ability of the cast to sell first their general level of teamwork before as well as their growing distrust in one another is vital to making the movie work. If anyone had come up short, the movie would suffer for it. Instead, everyone plays well off of each other – the general good-natured moments as well as the antagonism that flows anywhere from sarcastic barbs to open hostility. The ensemble nature makes it hard to really say there's any one person who stands out over the others, as each is ultimately strengthened by how they play off of the others, both in terms of being likable as well as making the viewers question who might be all they appear to be at any given time.

Okay, I had actually written quite a few drafts praising the work of Russel, David, and Brimley.
That said, I do want to give a quick shout out to David Clennon as the base's comic relief - it's a character where a little could go a long way, and rather than lay it on thick, it's played with a light touch that still delivers some laughs as well as one damn good jolt.

That element of uncertainty is even reflected in how the film is written and shot, where both Bill Lancaster and John Carpenter in their respective roles use it to its fullest. One aspect I find myself becoming more impressed with here is with regards to what questions the movie chooses to answer or not. The nature of the titular creature is an area where balance is necessary in what's revealed – too much information and the movie becomes mired in exposition that saps the tension, not enough and it feels like it's taking advantage of the creature's fluid nature to cut corners for its own convenience. As it's laid out, the movie gives a fairly solid set of 'rules' for its monster that it also plays by consistently. The trade being that the movie then uses a lack of information to raise questions of who may have been infected and when – such as an in early scene when the Thing, in the form of a dog, walks in on a member of the team who we only see as a vague silhouette – we can speculate to their identity based on who is revealed later, but we never find out who exactly that was. The end result is a film that leaves many mysteries to ponder, but also still has its core story come together so that it never feels like any of those questions are put in there to cheat the audience.

I said it at the start and I'll repeat it here – arguably, The Thing may be John Carpenter's best movie. This isn't to throw any of his other work under the bus, because overall much of his filmography is pretty strong, but even with that overall high bar to clear, it stands out. The tense story and direction, the cast that all mesh well, the claustrophobic set design, and the eerie score by the legendary Ennio Morricone (in a rare occurrence of someone else scoring a Carpenter movie) all work together beautifully, ironically enough in the service of a story where, to quote MacReady himself “nobody trusts anybody.”

"...and we're all very tired." --
AKA, the scene that came to describe the last few years for a LOT of people.

This marks the end for this movie, but not for the creature it spawned. Before we move on to the second installment of the trilogy in Prince of Darkness, we're going to be taking a dive into not one, but two separate attempts to build an expand the world of Outpost 31. Before we get to the 2011 prequel movie, we're digging back into a lesser known piece of lore from the age of comic book movie tie ins.

Keep an eye out for that real soon.

Till next time.