There has been so much written about John Carpenter’s now classic 1982 remake of THE THING, one of two movies from its’ year of release that have transcended box-office failure to yield a follow-up. In the case of THE THING, a 2011 prequel, set in the Norwegian camp that two of the American scientists discover and starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (DIE HARD 4.0, FINAL DESTINATION 3, TV’s FARGO), was much criticised for having CGI-gore compared to the physical brilliance of Rob Bottin’s FX in the original (more to come on that later in this review)
The other release that didn’t make much of an impact financially that year was BLADE RUNNER, a film that has spawned no fewer than five versions and a sequel directed by Denis Villeneuve, BLADE RUNNER 2049. There is also an excellent book on the making of this film, Paul M. Sammon’s FUTURE NOIR, which chronicles the whole saga, including the accidental discovery by an archivist called Michael Arick of a rare 70mm test print in 1989 at a vault in Burbank that led to the cult and revival of BLADE RUNNER in its’ eventual DIRECTOR’S CUT, released in 1992.
In lockdown, the last thing you want is this THING, as it is a film that taps into exactly the level of paranoia and uncertainty that the COVID-19 crisis has yielded, social distancing and concerns over food and who is or isn’t infected.
Back in 1982, the film was released about two weeks after E.T THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL opened and dominated box-office and didn’t do exactly too well, but then found its’ way into people’s minds and hearts as an accomplished and hugely intelligent sci-fi/horror combo that works on both levels and is a movie that deserves to be looked a little deeper. Horror-phobes might find it a little tough-going, but it gets my vote as the best horror film of the 1980s, no mean feat considering there were some other genuine classics in that decade, for example Sam Raimi’s THE EVIL DEAD (1981), Tobe Hooper’s POLTERGEIST (1982) and Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
Originally filmed in 1951 as THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, Carpenter’s film returned to the original source material, published in the 1930s and written by John W. Campbell as ‘WHO GOES THERE?’. Adapted by Bill Lancaster, the son of Hollywood legend Burt, the film opens with a helicopter chasing and shooting at a dog through the Antarctic wasteland. Both trespass into the vicinity of an US research station. In the confusion, the crew of the helicopter accidentally blow up the chopper with a grenade they have bought and one of the US team, Garry (Donald Moffat), the apparent security of the base.
McCready (Kurt Russell) and Copper (Richard Dysart) decide to fly to the camp, where they discover the remains of what happened – including a block of ice that seems to be missing something – and cart back what appears to be the remains of a man in the wreckage. The dog is placed in the kennel with the other animals, but is not what it seems….
Although THE THING was touted as a potential successor to ALIEN (1979) at the time of its’ release, this was less of a monster in a closet film like that film and focused more on the inner fear that we all have. Carpenter has said in interviews that the ‘thing’ represents all manner of things (at the time, AIDS was becoming a major problem, not dissimilar to COVID-19 these days)) and was probably something that people weren’t prepared to face.
Lead actor in THE THING, Kurt Russell outlined another interesting observation on the excellent making-of documentary on the Blu-Ray edition ‘TERROR TAKES SHAPE’ that much of the process of gore that goes on show here and the reaction it creates was not dissimilar to what it begins as after an animal is slaughtered and cut to the shape and look that ends up in your supermarket for purchase and eventual consumption (one of the other actors in the film, Wilford Brimley, who played Blair and was responsible for doing the autopsy of one of the corpses, worked in that environment in real-life, according to Russell.
There is so much more to focus on beyond the initial entertainment value, but the effects by Rob Bottin, who had just come off Joe Dante’s THE HOWLING (1980), have now passed into legend and remain some of the most incredibly rendered in their field. THE THING is not for the faint-of-heart, but if you want to see an intelligent horror film that rises above a lot of the films that were made in the genre of that period, then you have made the right choice.