THRILL SCALE 1-10
10
HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?
Yes, several times, although my first time was relatively recently, in the mid-2010s
BEST SEQUENCE
Tie between the dog scene and the defibrillator scene, and the blood test scene is a close runner-up
BEST LINE
"Nobody trusts anybody now. And we're all very tired."
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE
86%
ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS
"Grimmer and more terrifying than the 1950s take, John Carpenter's The Thing is a tense sci-fi thriller rife with compelling tension and some remarkable make-up effects."
IMDB SYNOPSIS
"A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims."
THOUGHTS
- I love this movie. In my list of favourite movies ever, it's in the top 10, and maybe even top 5. I went into this rewatch trying to be as unbiased as possible, but I was pretty sure it would get a perfect score on the Thrill Scale, and it deserves it. Even though this is maybe my 5th time watching it or so, it's still incredibly effective and terrifying. First movie to get 10/10, baby!
- The Thing has some of my favourite practical special effects ever put on film. During my Marvel reviews I came down hard on the ineffectiveness of CGI, and a movie like this backs up my assertion. We know we're watching a movie, we know it isn't real, but the techniques used, the directorial expertise, the actors' genuine reactions, they all work in tandem to make us completely forget that a creature like this does not really exist.
- And the creature effects are so unique to this movie. I really can't think of any other movie with special effects as bonkers as this one, but if you can think of any movies that can match something like the crab head (you know what I'm talking about if you've seen it), by all means, let me know
- Like I mentioned in my previous review, Carpenter's Thing is a shapeshifter that can look like any creature and, crucially for this movie, it can perfectly emulate any person. The narrative drive of the movie, therefore, is figuring out who's real and who isn't; who's safe and who's been infected. You can definitely have some fun trying to follow the timeline to figure out who's been turned and when. Watching it this time, I kept being reminded of the campfire game Werewolf (or Mafia, if you prefer)
- I personally cannot justify the 1951 version of this story (which we'll call From Another World) appearing on the AFI's list instead of the 1982 version (which we'll call Carpenter's). I had some pleasant surprises with From Another World, it was better than I expected, but in terms of thrills, special effects, storytelling, Carpenter's absolutely blows it out of the water. The most effective version of this story includes the paranoia about who's real and who isn't. From Another World pretty much just boiled down to a standard alien/monster movie. Carpenter's is in a whole other league
- Having said that, John Carpenter is a big fan of the original, and there are some fun connections I noticed, now that I've seen both. In his 1978 film Halloween (#68 on our list), Carpenter showed two characters watching From Another World on TV. The title card filming technique used by Carpenter is exactly emulating the original. Plot points from From Another World are shown as happening immediately before the events of Carpenter's - the way The Thing is transported in a block of ice and the way that The Thing's spaceship is discovered are both depicted in Carpenter's. And finally, my favourite scene of From Another World, in which The Thing is doused with kerosene and set on fire, probably inspired the all-important flamethrower seen in Carpenter's
- Carpenter's The Thing has rightly come to be seen as an essential sci-fi/horror movie. Inexplicably, when it came out, it was not a success and the critics hated it. My only reasoning for this is that critics in 1982 were a bunch of dorks. It has been pointed out, also, that The Thing was competing against E.T., which was a massive hit, came out two weeks earlier, and had a nice alien. It's kind of hilarious to think of the 1982 viewing public seeing E.T. and deciding friendly aliens were the way to go from now on; no more of this mean alien nonsense! And by the way, E.T. will also be appearing later on the list, at #44
- Watching it for this review, I had the pleasure of seeing it with some friends for whom it was their first time. Watching their reactions to the movie was almost as fun as just watching the movie itself. Especially early, when they had no idea what was going to happen and how messed up things would get. Credit to them, though, they knew something was up with that dog! Direct quote: "This dog knows something, man!"
- And finally, we're in the middle of a frigging heatwave here in Toronto. The Thing is the sort of movie that will lower your temperature by a few degrees just through its depiction of the Antarctic. Watch it!
Up next: I wasn't entirely planning on it, but screw it, let's watch, by all accounts, the vastly inferior prequel from 2011. Just a mini review, though, because I want to do a trio of mini reviews next: The Thing from 2011, the short story Who Goes There? from 1938 (which I still haven't read, but which inspired all of these movies) and the X-Files episode "Ice", heavily influenced by Who Goes There? and both versions of The Thing
No comments:
Post a Comment