Well, lookee here - another IHR induction. And a full two weeks before my next one was slated to be done, no less.Before I get started, I have to throw a shout-out to writer/producer/director John Carpenter. He's one of my film-maker idols, and through his nearly four-decade long career he has created a body of work that is almost second-to-none in the horror and thriller community. As the creator of my all-time favorite film "Halloween" his name is pretty much already synonymous with awesomeness, but throw in the original version of "Assault on Precinct 13" (which is SO much better than the 2005 remake with Ethan Hawke), "The Fog," the Kurt Russell "Escape" movies, "Big Trouble in Little China" and "In the Mouth of Madness" (which is one of the most underrated horror films of all time), and you've got the makings of one of the true greats.
But the reason that this particular movie gains induction is due to you, believe it or not. There has been a fair amount of general bitching in response to my reviews saying that I do a LOT of complaining about remakes. So here we go - the first remake to gain induction into the Registry. Happy, pappy?
To be sure, there have been plenty of insipid, banal, uninspired remakes over the years, most particularly recently. The remakes of "Prom Night," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Last House on the Left," "Shutter" and Carpenter's own "Halloween" have proven to be most annoying, and not even able to hold a candle to their trailblazing counterparts. But Carpenter's own remake of "The Thing from Another World," a little-seen 1951 adaptation of a novella by John Campbell, is not only a zillion times better than the original film, but one of the best horror movies of all time.
Folks, THIS is how you remake a movie - the goal should not only be to repeat a story and make it more modern and tech-savvy, but to expand on the characters and universe of the original film, and in general tighten the whole experience up. Carpenter understood this, hence why this movie stands today as the greatest remake ever filmed.
In fact, out of all movies done by Carpenter, "The Thing" ranks second only to "Halloween" in its level of tension, only heightened by the outstanding music by Carpenter himself and the claustrophobic cinematography by Dean Cundey. In addition, special effects master Rob Bottin took on the task of designing this movie's many animatronic and stop-motion creatures. Note to today's CGI maestros - anything that is actually, you know, ON the set is infinitely more scary, if for no other reason than actors can give better performances when actually interacting with something as opposed to simply moving away from where the director shines his laser pointer.
"The Thing" takes place in a remote American research base in the Antarctic, and the movie wastes little time in ramping up the tension. An Alaskan Malamute dog is making its way toward the camp, with a helicopter in hot pursuit. The Americans take in the dog, and the pilot of the helicopter - an occupant of a nearby Norwegian camp - accidentally kills himself and blows up his own helicopter after the careless use of a thermal charge.
It should be worth noting at this point that this generation's contingent of female horror fans won't find much to like here; "The Thing" is an even more guy-centric movie than "Jaws," and indeed, the only female presence in the entire movie is the voice of a chess computer. The main character and protagonist is helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell doing a great badass role once again), with much of the rest of the camp being made up of doctors and researchers. While MacReady is instantly likable, this movie contains a whole stable of flesh-and-blood, realistic types that jump off the screen, with Keith David's Childs also being a shining example of how a horror movie character can make you feel something other than just apathy. We go from absolutely hating to really liking this character by the end of the movie. Now that's development.
While the researchers attempt to unearth the mystery of what happened to the Norwegian camp, the dog that the pilot was chasing begins to act strangely. After MacReady and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) find a sort of "ice tomb" near the Norwegian camp, along with something that was obviously unfrozen, all hell breaks loose - the dog attacks the other canines in the American camp, and it's the researchers vs. the shapeshifter for the remainder of the film.
The villain of "The Thing" is truly something to behold - rather than rely on a single rubber suit for an actor to lumber around in, the Thing's shapeshifting nature serves as an even greater opportunity for tension, as it can absorb, and thus take on the form, of anything. Much of the second and third acts of "The Thing" is an invigorating game of "Who is the Thing?" Herein lies the true power of this movie - rather than go for a bunch of lame, boring action scenes, the true terror of this alien lies in the paranoia that it creates in all of the educated camp workers.
Of course, there's more than a few genuine jump and gross-you-out moments, as well. Without hyperbole, the special effects work of Bottin is truly one-of-a-kind, with the "Dog-Creature" and "Spider" versions of the Thing being particularly memorable. And late in the film, after the Thing has eliminated almost all of the members of the American camp, the final version of the creature is a sight to behold, as well, although only seen on screen for a few seconds due to budget limitations.
More than anything else, though, "The Thing" is immortal due to its colorful, eclectic mix of characters who may or may not be possessed by the alien being. In addition to all of the characters I listed above, there's Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley), station commander Garry, dog-handler Clark, Bennings, Windows, and Nauls (T.K. Carter). Want to know the mark of a great film? When you can remember character names after watching it, and when writing this review, I came up with all of those names at the drop of a hat. All are fleshed out extremely well and given plenty of screen time, and nobody in this film feels like a disposable victim. When there's a genuine emotional investment in a movie's characters, it only serves to make the sparse action that much better.
Much like Rob Zombie with Carpenter's "Halloween," the original "Thing" was a movie that Carpenter was a huge fan of, and thus decided to make a tribute to bring the movie to a new audience. Unlike Zombie, however, who populated the world of "Halloween" with the same dislikable, F-bomb loving hicks and tramps that ran rampant in his earlier movies, Carpenter understood how to make a world come alive through its characters. If only Rob could have learned a lesson from his idol's own remake - no matter how much of a boner you may have for the source material, it matters little if you don't have the ability to endear the material to an audience.
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