Classic Chat: The Thing
Nobody Trusts Anybody Now and We’re All Very Tired: How John Carpenter Made the Ultimate Millennial Movie
Kurt Russell finds out people are worse than aliens in The Thing.
What’s The Thing About?
Not much happens at Antarctic Outpost 31. The crew gets into the same petty arguments, the gameshows are all taped on VHS and watched ad nauseam, and the electronic chess game is a cheating bitch. There’s not much to do beyond smoking, drinking, and finding new ways to argue.
That changes when a husky comes bounding toward the station, chased by a helicopter. The people chasing the dog (and throwing grenades at it) are the Norwegian researchers that reside over the ridge. Why they’re trying to kill it is lost in translation as the two groups end up in a violent confrontation.
The Norwegians die and the Americans keep the dog.
This ends up being the worst thing that’s ever happened to Outpost 31. It turns out the Norwegians had discovered an alien lifeform capable of aping any living tissue it touches. And now that dangerous lifeform is in the American’s kennel.
How do you root out a threat that can look like anybody? They better figure it out quickly.
What Makes The Thing a Classic?
The Thing turned 40 this year, so it’s technically a millennial. And as such, it fits right in with the rest of our generation. Like so many films now considered a classic, the movie was derided at the time of its release. Now, the film might just be the ultimate millennial movie. It’s about an exhausted group of people who end up watching the world literally burn down around them. All it’s missing is Kurt Russell taking a selfie in front of the fire “for the ‘Gram”.
No one is going to accuse John Carpenter of having a rosy outlook on life. His classic works reflect on the fall of humanity and the rise of capitalism. In the 80s, he was a satirist. Now? He seems like Cassandra, screaming warnings to a population who refused to understand them.
This is a movie that shows us how quickly the world can unravel and how frustrating it is to try to stop it. Isolation and paranoia are almost a bigger threat to the crew than the alien. When the film starts, the crew at the outpost is a functional unit. They bicker, but all know their jobs and begrudgingly get along. But when the threat of an alien doppelganger emerges, trust is a thing of the past. They turn on each other immediately and even when they develop a test to prove humanity, they never really work as a cohesive unit again.
After suffering through two years of pandemic living and realizing just how horrible humanity is at working together to stop a common problem, it’s hard not to directly identify with MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Childs (Keith David) — who decide the only way to save the world is to share a bottle of booze and wait for death.
#mood, am I right?
But beyond being a film that encapsulates the hopelessness of a millennial who doomscrolls on Twitter every morning, The Thing is also one of the greatest monster movies ever made. It’s the perfect marriage of Carpenter’s storytelling and sense of filmmaking.
Carpenter insisted that the film be shot in realistic locations, with principal photography taking place in Alaska and Canada. The locations proved their own challenges, with extreme temperatures cracking camera lenses and making it impossible to even reach the sets on some days. But the expense and the hardship paid off. The 70mm print of the film shows off just how isolated the location was. When the camera pans the desolate snowy landscapes around Outpost 31, with nothing but barren snow and rocky outcroppings for miles, the viewer gets the idea that there’s no escape from this place.
The movie also employs a blue cast to the film, which works to both emphasize the cold and contrast with the fire that later engulfs them. The high-contrast footage also works as a good metaphor for the story itself. The actors’ faces are often engulfed partially in shadow — you can’t fully see them, obscuring their identity. Are they the thing?
That ambiguity is driven home by an excellent ensemble cast including Carpenter stalwarts Russell and David. Carpenter even got a convincing performance out of Jed the dog, who manages to be both menacing and adorable as he prowls the halls looking for people to consume.
The Thing is arguably most notable for some of the coolest practical effects on celluloid. Rob Bottin at only 22 managed to craft some of the most terrifying and memorable images of a monster ever formed. In another argument for practical effects being superior to most computer-generated fare, the effects in The Thing still look creepy, forty years later. They’re slimy, bloody, and frankly troubling on a visceral level. As you watch the tendrils snake out of the alien and melt its prey to a gooey nightmare, you get a real sense of just how horrible death at this creature’s hands is. What’s worse, being killed by a paranoid buddy or being slowly liquified as you scream?
But the real power of The Thing is that 40 years later, it’s still scary as hell. This reflection on paranoia, isolation, and the ultimate doom of humanity is terrifying whether you’ve seen it for the first time, or the 70th. Ennio Morricone’s pulsing score, Carpenter’s methodical storytelling, and some absolutely brilliant special effects work together to make a movie that builds a sense of dread for every viewer.
The next time you’re feeling depressed about the state of the world, pop in The Thing and remind yourself it could be worse — you could be tied to a couch with Palmer.
Verdict
A nearly perfect movie, The Thing holds up whether it’s the spooky season or not.
