The Thing (1982)

When is a horror movie NOT a horror movie?

Let's look at that question at length, shall we? In fact, it is the basis of my entire review for John Carpenter's remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks/Christian Nyby classic The Thing From Another World, which itself was a movie version of the John W. Campbell story "Who Goes There?". With a pedigree such as this, surely any remake could only be a success.

But first let's consider the career of John Carpenter: he started out a man of vision and fire with his freshman effort Dark Star and it's lower-than-low budget accomplishments, then went on to the slightly bigger-budgeted Halloween, which catapulted Carpenter into the pantheon of "Important Director". From there his flair for composition and artistic integrity continued with Escape From New York and The Fog, both of which had their own merit and separate accolades.

When he took the helm for his next effort, The Thing, his first decision was to go back to Campbell's original source material. A wise move; the book played out like a Cold War allegory, wherein the alien could take the shape of any one or thing - so maybe the person sitting next to you was a bloodthirsty Communist/alien? That in itself would make a compelling movie, so was Carpenter's apparent theory. Keep in mind that this was 1982 and tensions between America and Russia were still high. There was another film in 1982 that made the most of that tension in Clint Eastwood's Firefox, itself a high-tech special effects spectacular.

So far, all the ingredients are there: superior source, a director on top of his game. Now what about a script? That job fell to Bill Lancaster, a writer whose last big-budget job was scripting 1976's The Bad News Bears. And yes, that's the movie about Walter Matthau coaching a little-league team. Quite a leap but hey, stranger things have happened; the script could still turn out as long as the main plot of the book was followed. Now, on to the casting....

Kurt Russell was a favorite of Carpenter's since 1979 when they worked together on the TV biopic "Elvis". Russell was (and is) an adaptable actor who can make any role plausible; he'd also shed his Disney-fied image with Carpenter's Escape as the haggard, eyepatch-wearing Snake Plissken. This seemed like another way for Russell to come into his own as an actor. The rest of the cast was all male and contained great actors like (A.) Wilford Brimley, Richard Masur, Keith David and Donald Moffat and this made sense; not only was it (again) more faithful to the book but a romantic interest would have detracted from this life-or-death struggle against the unknown.

One more thing was now needed, and that was someone to oversee the special effects. Never were the effects more important in a film than they would be here to portray a shape-shifting alien creature that could mimic anything. For this, Carpenter welcomed aboard Rob Bottin, a makeup artist who worked with Carpenter on The Fog and Joe Dante on The Howling (a personal favorite). Certainly good things could be expected from The Thing now, what with all of the ingredients in place as they were. So the film was made, then released, then....

It's kind of difficult to be charitable towards a movie where such high expectations are built up. Like the guys who spend thousands of dollars to get ringside seats for the big fight, only to have a TKO end it all a minute in the first round. That's the feeling I got watching The Thing. This is not a movie that showcases direction, acting, cinematography or even the complexity of the story.

I'll explain: For a film that sets out to be a disparate all-tough guy production set in the South Pole, it's really just a Cliff's Notes version of the book. Distrust and resentment are built up and there are personal conflicts and such...and yet for all its macho swagger and bravado, this has more to do with the men getting separated from each other when it's imperative that they stick together. THEN the alien strikes. The basic element is there, but something's happened: not one character is built up enough or has generated enough personality for us to care whether they live or die. I'm not just talking in passing, either; in its entire running time, not a one of these men (not even Russell) becomes individual enough for us to interest ourselves in their situation. This is a filmic arcade game - we might as well watch the ghosts get eaten in a round of "Pac Man".

Carpenter's artistry is also not at its utmost; set in the Antarctic as it is, this is simply empty white space with several cramped interiors. It would be good to build up tension in, but none is. There are tense, sweaty faces aplenty and the script gives them more than enough opportunity to scream and swear at each other but none of the drama in Halloween is present. There are also no unique camera angles or off-kilter setups, a la The Fog. There's not even a chance for the grim humor from Dark Star; everything is straight-faced and solemn, as if this entire enterprise was a documentary, not a horror movie.

And as far as that goes, what IS The Thing? The only clue that it will be sci-fi is the spacecraft's pre-title plummet to Earth and a couple of fleeting references later on. The only drama will be who's the next to get killed, and since that's negated by the sameness of its characters even that's lost on us. A horror movie, perhaps, if for the fact that there are more than its share of jump-scares: sudden shock scenes that will make you literally leap right out of your seat. But that isn't due to any story or artistic conceit or even the acting. Russell and company all appear too cold to do very much emoting an what does happen is divided in two styles - muted or screaming. They could have provided over-the-top acting if they were permitted by the script, but there was no chance for that because there is only one star here, and that's Rob Bottin.

The main reason anyone watches The Thing today is to dare themselves to watch the screen; this was a landmark in 1982, in that never before had such an elaborate parade of live, "in-camera" effects been paraded across the screen of a studio film. The slime that permeates the effects could almost be billed as a secondary player, and I guarantee this is the only movie where you'll see a human's and a Siberian Husky's face literally PEEL AWAY.

But if you go to films like this to watch what is essentially an FX loop then you probably already own The Thing on VHS and DVD. And I won't deny Bottin his abilities; he created all of this at 22 and was sent to the hospital soon after for "extreme exhaustion". Bottin continues to work his trade today and has had phenomenal success.

As far as everyone else goes...Russell's career didn't suffer all that much, playing second-fiddle to the effects, and he still gets big parts from directors other than Carpenter. The Thing itself did make money but Carpenter's success afterwards as a director never peaked above his Halloween days and, though he still directs, his output is nowhere near as original nor as creative as it once was. He DID have one shot to recapture his glory with In The Mouth Of Madness, but this too seems to have fallen by the wayside along with his past laurels. A painful thing to say, but there it is.

So, when is a horror movie NOT a horror movie? When it is The Thing.