THRILL SCALE 1-10
7.5
HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?
Never
BEST SEQUENCE
The scene in which they douse The Thing with kerosene and set it on fire was super impressive, and believed to be the first full body burn stunt ever filmed for a movie
BEST LINE
"Watch the skies. Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies." - Final line of the movie, pretty iconic
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE
86%
ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS
"As flying saucer movies go, The Thing From Another World is better than most, thanks to well-drawn characters and concise, tense plotting."
IMDB SYNOPSIS
"Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a bloodthirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost."
THOUGHTS
- No need to be coy. Carpenter's version from 1982 is better. It's been a few years since I last saw Carpenter's The Thing, and I'm looking forward to the rewatch, but just from my memory of it I know it's going to get a higher rating
- However, taking the 1951 version as its own thing (hehe), I was pleasantly surprised by how effective it was
- The above-mentioned fire scene was viscerally exciting and felt dangerous just watching it, but The Thing from Another World also has the most effective jump scare I've seen so far in this blog. It's an earlier scene in which they're trying to find The Thing, they open a door, and it's RIGHT THERE. It's the first time we've seen The Thing up close, and the suddenness of its appearance really got me. I reacted verbally. If you don't care about spoiling the scene for yourself by watching it outside of the context of the movie, here it is: The Thing from Another World Best scene. The scene's not very long, but if you don't want to watch the whole thing, start at about one minute in
- Aside from the surprisingly effective thrills I got from watching this movie, it did feel a little antiquated at times, especially with some of the old-timey lines of dialogue. My personal favourite: one of the characters, a newspaper reporter, is skeptical about some of the statements being made by another character, a scientist. And the reporter says, "Dr. Carrington, you're a man who won the Nobel Prize. You've received every kind of international kudos a scientist can attain. If you were for sale I could get a million bucks for you from any foreign government. I'm not, therefore, gonna stick my neck out and say that you're stuffed absolutely clean full of wild blueberry muffins, but I promise you my readers are gonna think so."
- There's also a fairly unrealistic emphasis on wisecracking. Even late in the movie, when The Thing is out to get them and the situation is getting seriously dangerous, the script still has the characters making little witty remarks to each other
- I haven't read Who Goes There?, the 1938 sci-fi horror novella which inspired this movie and Carpenter's, but I found it online (Who Goes There?) so I'm planning on reading it before posting my next review, of Carpenter's version. One key feature of both the novella and Carpenter's movie, though, is the fact that The Thing is a shapeshifter who can imitate any living being. And this aspect, which I'd consider pretty crucial to the story, at least considering my reaction to Carpenter's film, is completely absent from the 1951 movie. The Thing in this movie is basically just your standard alien/monster, and he's even made to be kind of Frankenstein-esque. One point that is hammered home, though, is the fact that The Thing in this movie is not an animal, it's more like a vegetable. In fact, it's even referred to as "some form of super carrot" and that feels like an absolutely ridiculous thing to type out
- There's a part of me that thinks I'm being overly generous by giving this movie 7.5/10, as it does show its age in quite a few ways, but that jump scare really did get me! And if a black and white movie from 1951 is able to surprise me in such a visceral way, I think it deserves that score!
Up next: John Carpenter's version of this story, the disgustingly gory The Thing from 1982
No comments:
Post a Comment