The
Thing (1982)
Disclaimer:
DOGS DIE IN THIS MOVIE
My
very first thought watching this movie was, “I hope the people shooting the dog
die.” This just in, they did. I cheered.
However,
the insistent hunting of the dog and the camera angles focusing on it
foreshadowed it being infected. I watched this movie with my boyfriend and told
him, “I'd get infected for that cute a dog and I don't even know what the
infection does to you,” in which he responded, “I'm sure that'll change once I
see what The Thing is.” He was wrong. The monstrous Dog Thing was adorable in a
Cerberus way. Overall, The Thing aesthetically reminded me of both a demogorgon
(Stranger Things) and Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors). I especially like the
half-changed forms, like when Bennings still had The Silence hands. However,
when the Dog Thing changed and started spitting on and digesting the other pups
I was done. One whimper/bark from the huskies and I hugged my own dog and took
out my headphones until it was over.
Surprisingly
though, I did like the gore in the movie, and I'm not normally a gore fan. The
frozen body that cut his own throat was graphic and wonderful, and the melted
together faces of The Thing found in the Norwegian’s camp was interesting (I
liked the melty faces). You know the gore is good when you feel like you can
smell everything during the autopsy through the screen. Impressive special
effects makeup, and a scary movie given it was made in ‘82.
Now,
I don’t know if it was done before or after this movie, but a lot of elements
in this movie have become stereotypical by now. One of those is people ignoring
the reactions of the animals. The dogs were clearly growling and whining, but
the people didn't listen. Another is someone digging up something frozen they
don’t know about and unleashing it upon humans. This reminded me heavily of an
episode of X-files that gave me nightmares for a month as a child, called
‘Ice’:
“The
episode shows FBI special agents investigating the death of an Alaskan research
team. Isolated and alone, the agents and their accompanying team discover the
existence of extraterrestrial parasitic organisms that drive their hosts into
impulsive fits of rage.”
On the note of extraterrestrial, I found this movie more
horror than sci-fi. There wasn’t enough explanation for me to consider this
truly sci-fi. While it did talk about some, like how it mimics it’s hosts cells
after digesting them, overall I was left still wondering some specifics, like
how the cells could transfer or not (inconsistencies with cigarettes, knives,
etc.). We could tell it was intelligent. It stayed as a dog until the humans
trusted it, moved away from the fire as a head spider, and took out the generator
to freeze itself. Yet, we don’t really know much besides that.
Overall,
I was left liking and remembering the names of Mac and Blair. Both of them were
the logical and entertaining ones. Blair smashes the computers and tools to
escape, and in doing so he goes crazy and then gets infected. Mac is the main
character, and is smart enough to make a tape for later while also fighting
until the better end.
Now,
about the bitter end.
It
was a good ending. I love a good cliffhanger. Ambiguity has a special place in
my heart. The writer and director in interviews even said they don't know the
order of characters getting infected, or who was real or not at the end. That's
one of the great things about this movie. But I read a thread online that
Child's ended as a Thing because Mac was going to drink the bottle and then
realized it was from the Molotov cocktails. So Child's drank straight gasoline.
But
that's just a theory.
For
threads on infection order:
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/95010/who-gets-infected-first-in-john-carpenters-the-thing
It is strange how it was like an parasite right? It just seemingly override and modified the biological ability of each creature it used as a host. At first I thought it was cloning them, but then I began to realize no bodies were showing up. Then I thought, oh it eats, digests, and imitates them. Either way, I enjoyed thinking about it as a parasite rather than some alien creature because it made more sense as a parasite to me, even though it digested its target to clone them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the parasite aspect really made me think of that X-files episode
DeleteWhat I thought was really interesting was how Blair showed up at the end and stuck his hand in that one guy's face and basically grafted to him or something. It was like his cells were re-programming the victim's cells--something that you might see in a Terminator movie, except its purely biological.
ReplyDeleteAlso, regarding the reaction of animals. I was surprised that the dogs didn't immediately sense that the other dog was a thing. They didn't start barking until the dog started changing into a different form and started attacking them. Some movies will have animals sense something's wrong right away, and the humans ignore it. This wasn't that same case. I expected them to growl the moment the cage door was opened and the thing dog was put inside with them. I only say this because it's a reason the humans didn't pay attention to the animal reactions. That guy was gone before the barking started. Now, could he have heard it from a distance? Yeah. And eventually he did. But it wasn't like they started the barking immediately with him there. That guy was portrayed as being pretty close to animals, so I don't think he'd have blown it off had it started when he was still there.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point, but I think that only emphasizes the Things ability to adapt and fool the creatures around it. It assimilates so well that creatures of the same species can't tell until it's too late. That's not just for humans, but for the dogs too.
DeleteI'm also not usually a fan of gore, but liked how it was done in this movie. And you're so right—Bennings hands to remind me of the Silence! As do the melty faces, to a certain extent. I also had questions about the science aspect of the film, but honestly I'm really glad that they didn't try to explain it too much. I feel like a lot of the books and movies we've looked at for this course err too much on the side of trying to explain their monsters, which makes them seem somehow even less plausible than leaving it semi-paranormal. In I Am Legend, for example, his explanations for plague dust made me much more skeptical than I'd be if he just said, "Yep, vampires have always been real, we just didn't know it."
ReplyDelete