The Thing Review – Halloween Horror Extravaganza

The Thing Review

What’s more horrifying than some strange thing, some ancient alien, hunting and killing your research team, your friends, one-by-one? Having it replace your friends one-by-one with a perfect replica, infiltrating the group to mimic and slaughter everyone.

That is the horror of “The Thing” and the subject of this Halloween Horror Extravaganza Review. The Thing, released in 1982, is a classic of creature and body horror by the one and only John Carpenter, a veritable legend in horror cinema.

This year’s first post in the Halloween Horror Extravaganza, we’re going over a movie that’s near and dear to my cold and frozen heart (Yes Antarctica jokes. Get over it.) I’ve watched this film several times and it gets better with each viewing. That’s because it’s so much fun trying to determine when The Thing took over each of the researchers. It’s so hard to tell because the devastating and disgusting body horror is matched only by the subtlety of the creature’s behavior off screen. When it’s there, it’s fucking there. When you don’t know where it is, it could be everywhere or nowhere. Even knowing what’s coming next, I’m still on the edge of my seat as I watch our doomed heroes try to uncover which of their friends is now an enemy that could destroy the world itself.

We start with a dark and ambient electronic soundtrack. We see the depths of space and a flying saucer gliding into frame, then falling toward the Earth. This shot was added in post and Carpenter actually didn’t like it. It would have been better for the audience to have no idea, starting out, what the thing was.

The Horror Begins

Then we see our date: Antarctica, winter 1982. A dog is running through thick snow as a man with a rifle rides as passenger in a helicopter. The man fires over and over but doesn’t manage to land a single shot on the poor husky.

We leave the chase and find ourselves at the “United States National Science Institute Station 4.” The place is a large complex with several buildings. Members of the facility are playing ping pong in the main complex and R.J. MacReady, played by Kurt Russel, playing against his “chess wizard” in his cabin. The computer checkmates our protagonist. He opens a panel and pours his glass of liquor into it. “Cheating bitch,” he says, then goes outside.

Now that’s one hell of an intro. He’s a loner, not hanging out with the rest of the crew. He plays chess and drinks alone in his free time. He’s about to have a lot of that because winter is coming and there’s no leaving the base once the winter storms hit. He’ll also destroy a computer for cheating. A computer he won’t be able to replace all winter. He doesn’t care. He’s impulsive.

Film, over other fiction forms, has to do so much with so little. If this were a novel (yes, it’s based off a novel but the characters are quite different from my understanding, having not read it), we could spend pages of exposition getting into his head. But no, we have 2 hours with these characters. We already know MacReady’s character well based on such a small interaction. Between Bill Lancaster, who wrote the screenplay, Carpenter himself, and Kurt Russell, they managed to get some solid characterization going right from the get-go.

Also, will you look at that magnificent beard? I wish I could grow something like that. It’s a true winter beard. My cheeks simply won’t do it. Either Russell has some amazing beard growing genes or the makeup team came up with a great addition to his costume.

The husky brings his pursuing helicopter to the base, running in as the copter overtakes and circles the complex to get another shot. Everyone rushes outside to see why it’s there. The sniper opens a box of grenades and begins throwing them onto the dog, but still can’t land a hit. What’s wrong with this dude?

The husky runs to the gathering scientists, jumping up to lick one of their faces. The sniper grabs another grenade and runs out of the helicopter after it lands, lobbing it behind him, on accident, and running away as the helicopter blows up in an epic practical effects stunt.

The man is clearly deranged. He’s screaming at them in Norwegian (providing a spoiler for those who could speak the language and watched the English version), then opens fire on the group, hitting one of them in the process. The scientists scatter as the man walks after the dog, still firing his rifle.

The leader of the camp breaks a window from inside and fires his revolver, killing the madman with a single shot to the head. Several of the men run to the destroyed and still inflamed helicopter to douse it. The pilot is long dead. The base’s dog handler pets their new companion.

After the flames are doused, MacReady says, “First Goddamn week of winter.” I love that. One line, one sentence. Once again, a little goes a long way. We know everything we need to about the situation they’re in. No need to dwell on it, or go any further than that. Just bam, they’re probably fucked, even before we know what’s really going on.

The radio won’t contact anyone. The storms are thick. The radio tech hasn’t been able to contact anyone for two weeks and Dr. Blair (played by Wilford Brimley) is giving him shit, demanding he do his job anyway.

We meet the crew. The pot-head, the medical doctor, the radio-tech, the roller-skate-guy (he wears them all the time and is also the cook), and several others. All-in-all, there’s twelve men at this base and their winter is getting off to a great start, wouldn’t you say?

The Norwegian crew had only been at their base for 8 weeks, according to one of the men. I guess Antarctica is such a small town that everyone knows what everyone else is doing. Not really a complaint because I don’t doubt it would be true. Roller-skate-guy says that down here, 2 months is plenty of time to go stir-crazy. But, there should be eight of them left now that two (the gunner and the pilot) are dead. The team agrees to go check out the other base to see what’s going on.

MacReady is the base’s helicopter pilot so he takes Garry (the head of the base) and Dr. Copper (the medical doctor and someone who wants to check it out) through the bad weather. MacReady advises against it but flies anyway. More characterization, he’s curious and doesn’t run away from danger.

Meanwhile, the new dog of the base is hanging out in the rec room with several base members. Time passes and the dog is wandering around the base. He enters a room with the shadow of one man, we don’t know who it is. He turns to the dog to pet it.

The helicopter reaches the base. Smoke billows against the total white of the surroundings. The base was burned to a crisp and massive holes are in all of the walls.

The three men go inside to see what happened. MacReady brings his shotgun. They find an axe planted in a door with blood on the handle. Pushing past it, they delve deeper. The place is covered in thick icicles and frost. A trail of blood points to a man in a chair, frozen solid. He holds a razor and his throat and writs are slashed deep. Blood clings to him in crimson icicles dangling from his arms.

In one of the last rooms, there’s a huge block of ice with the middle dug or melted out. Something was inside that block at one point. Just outside, as they’re heading back to the chopper, they find a grotesque mound of flesh blackened from burning, surrounded with empty kerosene cans.

Returning to the base, we get a better look at the mound. The dog looks on as the men move it inside.

The mound is a twisted corpse with far too many limbs to be just one person. It’s stuck in an agonized position with hands splayed out. There are two heads at one end of the thing, half-merged with one another. Taught skin pulls them together as they look on in a silent scream.

This is as good a time as any to mention the practical effects. They’re astounding, even today. Sure, some things look a bit rubbery, but overall it’s still far more horrifying than anything CGI gives us these days. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times but that’s simply because it’s true. Practical effects are just better for this sort of stuff. I heard one person’s opinion that CGI should be used in tandem with practical effects (for things that aren’t totally animated). I have to agree. They give a tactile realness that even the best CGI still can’t quite grasp. Plus, most CGI isn’t even close to the best out there. In-fact, several of the cast members struggled not to vomit and during the coming autopsy scene with the grotesque horror before them. I can’t imagine what the characters must have felt with the added smell that would have no-doubt permeated the place.

Cutting into the flesh, Dr. Blair finds a normal set of internal organs… Human organs.

That night, many of the crew are together in the rec room. Clark, the dog wrangler, has to put the husky in with the others because it’s been running around all day, unwatched. The husky hesitates and slowly walks into the middle of the large kennel with the other dogs. It lies down in the center of the room and stares at the far wall. Clark notes it but leaves anyway.

The Dog Kennel

Now, as a writer, I’m going to try to describe what comes next. If you haven’t seen the film, I doubt I can do it justice. If you have, feel free to let me know how I do. The work is almost incredible, but as someone who wants to work on his descriptive capabilities, I shall do my best to describe, in its entirety, the coming scene.

With the lights off, the dog lets out an ominous hiss. The other huskies begin freaking out and barking wildly at their new guest, cowering against the fences of the single large kennel. The new husky hisses again, peeling its face back into a snarl before the flesh over his skull splits open into four flaps like a necromorphic flower. The skull drops to the floor, leaving a long tongue in the center of the fleshy, blood drenched flower.

The dogs are standing around it, barking in fury and fear. One even jumps up at the fence and starts tearing it apart with its teeth. Thin tendrils expand from the creature’s torso, all over its body, writhing in violent convulsions to the tune of the malevolent cicada chirp which fills the air. Pink, flesh-covered spider legs erupt from the thing’s back as it writhes on the ground. The dogs squeal and whimper as the monster sprays them with a purple, gooey liquid.

Clark finally responds to the panic as the last of the barking dies down. He pears into the blackness of the kennel, then opens the door. One of the dogs leaps out with a squeal, knocking Clark onto the ground as it and one other sprint for safety.

Only then does Clark see the horror that lurked but a few feet away. It sends out several of its tentacles toward the open door of the kennel. Clark kicks the door shut as they impact with the exit.

MacReady heard the commotion while grabbing a beer from the fridge and sounded the fire alarm. He and several others rush to the kennel, shouting.

Childs, played by Kieth David, is told to grab the flamethrower. MacReady stalks toward the enclosure as others come from the other direction. He opens the door and points his flashlight onto the thing.

No-longer is it simply a dog with no skull, tentacles, and spider legs. No, now it is a fleshy mound. A deformed dog’s head with no skin and a twisted face rises to meet the light. It lets out a low, guttural whale.

Bright red tentacles continue to writhe on the ground, each one stretching to ensnare the dogs which have been half-melted from the purple goo sprayed on them but moments before.

MacReady opens fire with his shotgun, blowing holes into the creature and hitting one of the ensnared dogs. Clark jumps on MacReady shouting, “No!” But MacReady pushes him off and two other men hold Clark back. The thing unleashes two thick limbs with grasping clawed hands toward the ceiling and pulls itself up.

Finally, Childs arrives with the flamethrower. He freezes. The mound of twisted, bloody flesh, incomprehensible. Impossible that any of this is really happening.

“Dammit Childs, torch it,” shouts MacReady.

The mound opens into a wide maw of spindled tissue underneath the thing’s skin. A huge pedal of flesh, laced with rows of teeth, opens wide. Childs snaps out of it, engulfing the nightmare in an ocean of flame.

That’s what the party has to deal with. That’s the insanity that is this film. I doubt I did even remote justice in trying to describe the spectacle that is Rob Bottin’s work. It can’t be overstated just how weird and disgusting it is. This shit is insane and absolutely awesome.

If ever there was a representation of Lovecraft’s descriptive style (or lack-there-of) I’d say this is it. The grotesque and horrifying thing. Writhing parts of many creatures all in one. There’s so much Lovecraft here and it’s amazing. Hands down, these are still some of my favorite creature effects in any film, and it’s 39 years old.

I believe I’ll end the summary portion here. If you haven’t seen the film, you really should. I don’t want to spoil it and if you have seen it, I doubt I’ll be covering much more ground than what’s previously been said by hundreds of other reviewers.

The Thing Review – Wrapping Thing(s) Up

I will say that it bombed at the box office. No-one liked it. Reviewers hated it. It was way too much for the people of 1982. Way too violent. Too much gore. Today, it may still look fantastic but there’s plenty of other stuff that’s even more gory and disturbing. Back at that time, nothing like it had been seen before. Fortunately, as the years have gone on, it’s gathered quite the following. It even got a mediocre prequel film covering the Norwegian team, also called “The Thing,” because we needed even more difficulty in describing the movie. That film shows exactly why you should always go with practical effects with these kinds of things. The prequel started off with fantastic practical effects. Then the studio made everything be CG’d over in post production. Those execs had no clue what they were doing, apparently.

I didn’t really get too much into the true threats of the film. I stopped right at the transition from act I to act II, where things get really crazy and the tension begins building and building and building into this knot. It’s like a violin with the strings so tight, one pull too hard will break it. But somehow, when it snaps, it sounds fantastic. No one trusts anyone. Multiple people turn up missing and end up being another replica. The paranoia that seeds is fantastic for the film but also can be talked about in real life allegory.

Appropriate ideas for the middle of the Cold War, no? The paranoia of not knowing your neighbor can be easily seen here. That unknown and dangerous entity (or ideology) that was consuming everyone around you (or not) in your small, isolated community. Not knowing who you could trust. Feeling alone and abandoned by the world in a cold wasteland where there’s this seemingly unstoppable force coming to destroy you and everything you love. It’s exactly what sci-fi should be, reflecting real life while exploring something totally alien or strange.

I really like The Thing and am happy to have my first review in this year’s Halloween Horror Extravaganza cover it. I’m trying out some new things with my style because I’m still figuring out how I want to do my reviews. Let me know what you think.

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