Week Ten: The Thing

This week it’s back to alien horror goodness in the 1982 movie The Thing directed by John Carpenter.

I’d like to preface by saying I’m not easily grossed out or disturbed. I’m the person who tells everyone it’s okay to look when a particularly graphic, gory scene is over or laughs when the Alien bursts out of Kane’s stomach. However, I lost count the number of times I asked myself “What the f*ck am I watching?” during The Thing, and asking myself that question is a first for me.

The Thing was the first monster I had a hard time watching do its bad beastie routine. I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie, which might have contributed to reaction of the monster. I had nothing in mind, and my imagination likes to run rampant when filling in details. Let’s start with the setting. The movie opens with a shot of a flying saucer headed towards earth, which immediately brought Alien to mind. But the setting for this movie was isolated Antarctica rather than deep space. I've got issues with being trapped in the cold, which is a huge reason I found 30 Days of Night to be off-putting. It’s isolated, and there’s the very real chance of freezing to death. Turns out, the flying saucer in the opening scene crashed in Antarctica 100,000 years before the story takes place. The ship and its inhabitant are buried beneath layers of ice and are frozen in a sort of suspended animation.

Fast forward to 1982, and a group of Norwegians are trying to shoot down a dog belonging to the American research team. It didn't take long for me to figure out something was up with the dog, but the bad taste was already in my mouth. While I’m the person with the iron stomach when it comes to gore, I’m also the person who gets upset when the dog dies. However, I supposed the Norwegians had a good reason to go after the dog.

The alien Thing is a shape shifter who can perfectly mimic any living organism after a short period of isolated time with them. The American research team finds the burnt figure of a creature that appears to be a conglomeration of multiple animals, yet the dog the Norwegians were after is the first victim the audience is allowed to see change. The only word I have to describe the dog transformation scene is ewwwww. Eloquent, I know. What makes the transformations so disturbing is that animal characteristics are easily recognized, but it doesn't look like any particular animal. Parts of it might be dog-like, others spider-like, still others almost human.

 

As a monster, The Thing takes the prize this term for freaking me out. It also takes the prize for causing the most psychological turmoil within the characters. I find the most successful monsters to be the ones who are constantly on the minds of their prey, but the Thing takes it a step further. Not only is it constantly on the minds of the research team, but it could be anyone on the team. No one can trust anyone. At least the other monsters throughout the term so far were distinct entities, and the people fighting them knew what they were after. The monsters were obviously monsters. Yet the Thing can mimic the face of anyone—it’s only easily recognized when it’s between forms. Not only is there the fear of the Thing itself, there’s also the fear that it could literally be anyone. I think that’s more disturbing than the fear that the monster could be anywhere.

If given the chance, the Thing could eventually assimilate to every person in the world. Worldwide trust issues? That's almost as frightening as the Thing itself. This distrust seeps into the audience, because the ending is unclear whose face the Thing was wearing last. The open ending forces audiences to wonder if the Thing was actually killed or it survived as one of the remaining crew members to freeze to death. It leaves the audience wondering if the monster was truly defeated or if it will eventually become dormant under the ice, just like it was in the beginning.

Despite every squirm and every expletive uttered while watching this movie, I enjoyed it because it made me uncomfortable. That doesn't mean it’s on my list of favorite movies. All I ask is that we never talk about the spider head…. Nightmare fuel, that is.

P.S. Happy Halloween!