In the late 1970s director John Carpenter built a solid reputation as Master of the Macabre with his films HALLOWEEN and THE FOG. These films were made independently with smaller production companies so Carpenter would be able to make them without interference from the money people. His first big studio film was at Universal with THE THING, a remake of the classic science fiction film The Thing from Another World from 1951.
The original film was based on a notorious short story “Who Goes There?” written by John W. Campbell jr. but could at the time not fully live up to its potential because there was no way to film the implications of the story in 1951. Carpenter intended with his remake to stay true to this original story, by having the screenplay of Bill Lancaster (son of Burt Lancaster) heavily emphasize the terrible implications of an alien invasion on a cellular level. Lancaster wrote his screenplay in 1981 and the preproduction of the film involved building the Antarctic research camp out near Stewart, British Columbia, where lots of snow in the winter was assured. Of course, studio shooting took place in wonderfully warm California, meaning they had to refrigerate the sets.
Carpenter casted the film for a wholly male cast; unlike in the original film, there were no females at his research camp. The main lead would be Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady, the helicopter pilot. Russell wanted to break free of the Disney image he had previously enjoyed in the early years of his career and with roles like Snake Plissken in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and MacReady in THE THING, he clearly succeeded in this. Secondary roles would be filled in by Donald Moffat as Camp Commander Garry, Wilford Brimley as Medical Doctor Blair, T.K. Carter as the cook Nauls, Richard Dysart as physician Dr. Copper, Peter Maloney as Bennings, Keith David as Childs, Charles Hallahan as Norris, David Clennon as Palmer, Joel Polis as Fuchs, Richard Masur as Clarke, the dog wrangler and Thomas Waites as Windows, communications expert. Although a group bond was created fairly quickly amongst the men during filming, Carpenter allowed certain frictions to play up when the paranoia in the story sets in. This also facilitated an original look on how to shoot a moving group of men continuously without repeating one self.
The music of the film would be scored by the legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone, who composed a masterfully cold score for this nihilistic horror thriller. Carpenter added some synthesizer cues of his own here and there to emphasize the drama. Dean Cundey would be the director of photography, just like he had been before with Carpenter’s films HALLOWEEN, THE FOG and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.
The film opens with a dog being chased by a helicopter, over the icy landscape of Antarctica, until the dog reaches an American research camp. The dog tries to find cover while the chopper lands and two men exit, one pilot and one man firing on the dog.
Due to an accident with an explosive, the helicopter is destroyed and the pilot killed and when the other man continues to fire at the dog, even hitting one of the men in the American camp, station commander Garry shoots and kills the man with the gun. The dog is adopted in the camp by the dog wrangler and when it becomes clear that the helicopter is from the Norwegian camp not too far off, Dr Copper and pilot MacReady fly to this Norwegian camp to find out what is going on.
They find the camp in ruins, burned and destroyed and the personnel is missing or found to be horribly mutilated. They also find a hideous creature with semi-human traits that has apparently been burned and MacReady finds a tomb of ice where something has come out of as if something has arisen from its sleep.
Having returned to the American camp, the dog starts to transform into an alien entity in order to absorb the other dogs. The barking of the dogs alert the camp personnel and when they arrive some THING crawls out thru the roof before the remainder is burned with a flame thrower. The remains are examined by Blair and he concludes that these remains are from some organism that tries to imitate other life forms and assimilate them before becoming them. He also notes the remains aren’t quite dead yet.
When the remains are quarantined, a tendril is seen infecting Bennings and assimilating him but the others arrive in time to see he is not yet completed and MacReady burns him. The situation worsens when the men start to distrust each other and paranoia sets in, keeping them from forming a steady front against the thing. But before the film is over, the situation goes from bad to even worse, towards a strongly nihilistic conclusion.The wholly original and outrageous special effects were designed and executed by Rob Bottin, with the exception of the dog creature, which was created and manned by Stan Winston and his team.
Bottin kept in mind that it was a wonderful thing not to know what one could not do but the immense pressure to produce his effects and pull things off correctly did end him up in hospital once the shoot was over.
When THE THING opened in 1982, it opened against Steven Spielberg’s ET THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL and Ridley Scott’s BLADE RUNNER. Reviews in the press were mixed (most reviewers did not appreciate the negative ending nor its nihilistic atmosphere) and box office results remained poor. People preferred their aliens sweet, apparently and were not prepared to spend money on films with bleak endings. (It is therefore very ironic that THE THING now belongs to the highest rated Cult Favourites, but it finally found its audience on video and DVD later on.)
Also, part of the problem was that Universal did not know how to market the film. When the studio commissioned artist Drew Struzan to design a poster for the film, Struzan’s design turned out to be rather mystifying. Apparently one had not told what kind of horror Struzan should go for in his design. His art work is beautiful but somewhat odd when referring to this film.
Carpenter had filmed a scene showing that MacReady had survived, sort of as a happy ending after all but this scene was never included in any performance of the film. Although Carpenter has stated he had a good idea for a sequel, Universal never expressed any interest in it. The Thing has had sequels in American published comics though and a prequel is being produced with basically the same title: The Thing. (However it will not be John Carpenter’s The Thing. The director is Matthijs van Heijningen jr and the film will be released in 2011.) It will feature a lot of practical effects like the Carpenter film and deal with the Norwegian camp and what their personnel experienced. Carpenter’s stance on this is rather ambivalent. Since he had never been contacted about it, he does not really care. He was only the ‘hired gun” on the Universal film back in ‘82.
Despite the lack of success back in the day, John Carpenter’s The Thing is a Masterpiece of Modern Horror and Suspense. It dares to be original and unconventional, is totally ruthless in its dealings with the victims and ultimately does not care to bow to the audience with a happily resolved ending. The imaginative creature designs by Rob Bottin are both hideous and aesthetically beautiful yet in the audience’s recollection, it is exactly these designs that are recalled afterwards because they are totally original and in no way derivative of other designs.
Finally, Carpenters steady, controlled direction allows the film to calmly go from controlled calm to utter nihilistic chaos and paranoia. John Carpenter’s The Thing is a tough film to digest but as such it ranks among the best films he has ever made. It is unfortunate that at the time of its release it was not appreciated more. But I remember seeing it in the cinema at the time and being amazed at its incredible and ruthless beauty. It has been a favourite film of mine ever since.
So thank you, John Carpenter ! I look forward to your upcoming film The Ward.
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