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Christine Kelley - Retrospective: The Thing
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The Thing startles me whenever I revisit it every year or two. It's not that I forget that it's brilliant — whenever I think of great horror films, The Thing is one of the first three or four movies that pop into my head. But perhaps I'm prone to recalling a few moments from it rather than the thing as a whole. This is understandable, I suppose, and it's probably how most people think of movies. As Howard Hawks said, a great movie has three good scenes and no bad ones.
John Carpenter's The Thing passes Hawks' litmus test with flying colors (as we would hope for a remake of a film which Hawks co-wrote and produced). The damned thing is constructed impeccably; Carpenter immediately plunges us into mystery by opening the film with Norwegians in a helicopter chasing and shooting at a husky. I'm not sure you could come up with a more perfectly bewildering and unnerving opening sequence for a monster film. And while we gradually learn why the Norwegians are chasing Fido, the film does not answer every question. There's no midpoint where all questions are answered and The Thing becomes a straightforward runaround with researchers and monsters. To its last frame, The Thing retains a core of mystery, refusing to reassure the audience, fervently declining to let viewers walk away comforted.
The Thing wisely retains the Cold War thriller at the heart of its source material. Nobody trusts each other; nobody can even trust the monster to have a consistent form. John Carpenter gives us a monster that would make Sartre shudder: other people. The Thing is the story of a horror people are completely unprepared for. The finest film Howard Hawks never made.
The Thing startles me whenever I revisit it every year or two. It's not that I forget that it's brilliant — whenever I think of great horror films, The Thing is one of the first three or four movies that pop into my head. But perhaps I'm prone to recalling a few moments from it rather than the thing as a whole. This is understandable, I suppose, and it's probably how most people think of movies. As Howard Hawks said, a great movie has three good scenes and no bad ones.
John Carpenter's The Thing passes Hawks' litmus test with flying colors (as we would hope for a remake of a film which Hawks co-wrote and produced). The damned thing is constructed impeccably; Carpenter immediately plunges us into mystery by opening the film with Norwegians in a helicopter chasing and shooting at a husky. I'm not sure you could come up with a more perfectly bewildering and unnerving opening sequence for a monster film. And while we gradually learn why the Norwegians are chasing Fido, the film does not answer every question. There's no midpoint where all questions are answered and The Thing becomes a straightforward runaround with researchers and monsters. To its last frame, The Thing retains a core of mystery, refusing to reassure the audience, fervently declining to let viewers walk away comforted.
The Thing wisely retains the Cold War thriller at the heart of its source material. Nobody trusts each other; nobody can even trust the monster to have a consistent form. John Carpenter gives us a monster that would make Sartre shudder: other people. The Thing is the story of a horror people are completely unprepared for. The finest film Howard Hawks never made.
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