Remakes are generally inferior to the original films they spring from, but there are exceptions. One of these are the John Carpenter remake of Howard Hawk's The Thing From Another World. As our resident horror movie analyst Jeff Beres reveals, it's more than just...
By JEFF BERES
The Thing From Another World (1951) Directed by Christian Nyby (some say Howard Hawks, the film’s producer, had a hand in the direction, too); Starring Kenneth Tobey and Margaret Sheriden. Written by Charles Leterer, Ben Hecht, and John W. Campbell, Jr. (from his novel "Who Goes There?")
The
Thing (1982) Directed by John Carpenter;
Starring Kurt Russel and Wilford Brimley. Written by Bill
Lancaster from Mr. Campbell’s novel.
Plot Summary: Scientists at an Arctic research station discover a spacecraft buried in the ice. Upon closer examination, they discover the frozen pilot. All hell breaks loose when they take him back to their station and he is accidentally thawed out! (Plot Summary from Internet Movie Database.)
As previously promised, this movie comparison is of the two excellent "Thing" films.
(If you haven’t seen both films, you might want to stop right here and go watch them. Otherwise, there’ll be spoilers.)
Although Carpenter’s remake of The Village of the Damned failed because he tried to turn a small, creepy film into an Action Adventure epic, he tries the same approach with The Thing and it succeeds. Really succeeds. Although the original Thing had a stronger theme, scientists are dickheads and the militia rules, the Carpenter remake is more entertaining.
Why?
First of all, let’s be fair. Very few movies age well. The original Thing is 47 years old. That’s old, man. Film seems to have taken its time growing up and getting away from its stage origins. Most of the actors in older films were trained on the stage and it shows. By 1951, things had come a long way but there was still a long way to go. I mean, it was the Fifties, for God’s sake. Even though people said things like "You gotta be fucking kidding me!" in real life, producers couldn’t put that kind of language in a movie and still sell tickets. We were still morally constipated. So, even though the 1951 dialogue was probably more realistic than the dialogue moviegoers were used to in the fifties, it still wasn’t the way people really spoke.
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| The Thing From Another World (1951) | The Thing (1982) |
Another thing. Back in the fifties, people thought everyone could get along. I mean, we got along long enough to beat the Nazis, why couldn’t we keep getting along? Things just aren’t like that anymore, thank God. Good drama is conflict. No one wants to watch a bunch of happy people getting along for two hours. Luckily, our cast had the Thing to contend with, and that’s where the film really excelled. The scenes leading up to and fighting the monster are incredibly well done. The first confrontation with Carrot Man is a showstopper. Toby opens the hothouse door and Boom! There it is. From that point on, you’re on guard.
Another plus is the Type "A" dialogue. People step on each other’s lines constantly, which is a Howard Hawks trademark, I believe. This is frustrating. And it adds to the frustration felt by the audience as the creature slowly strangles the life out of the camp.
To the film’s credit, the hero, Kenneth Toby, isn’t a perfect, know-it-all kinda guy. He constantly takes advice from the other men. And he even listens to a woman! (Don’t yell at me. It was the Fifties, remember.)
Now, the remake.
Mood: The mood is set early on by a line spoken by MacReady (Russell.) Norwegians have attacked the camp trying to kill a Husky that’s actually the Thing. "Mac" and friends kill the Norwegians and try to figure out why they went nuts. Mac stands on his steps, looks at the ominous storm clouds approaching and says, "First goddamn week of winter." Even before they know about the Thing, they have to deal with winter in the arctic, their neighbors have gone nuts and they just killed two men. Damn!
Dialogue: The dialogue is
consistently first rate. I remember seeing this film in the 
theaters when it came out. The dialogue
astounded me. That’s the way my friends talk, man! And they
all hate each other, too. Well, you know. They constantly bicker
like that. And we’re lazy talkers. Most people use the least
amount of words to get their point across. Especially guys. This
verisimilitude, or realistic detail, helps suck you into the
movie. You empathize with these guys. Like when Doc and Mac check
out the Norwegian campsite. They find the burnt remains of a
Thing. Doc looks closer and says; "Is that a man in there or
something?" That’s the way people talk. Or when the
Head Thing flutters away across the floor and Palmer says,
"You gotta be fucking kidding me." That’s what I
would say.
F/X: I don’t know why Carpenter used such over the top special effects, but they work. Another tribute to the film. Showstopping effects ruin some films. This one takes them in stride. And remember, these effects were unheard of in 1982. Now, they’re expected. I read an article about the making of The Thing in Cinemafantastique, a very good magazine about horror/sci-fi films and their effects. There were no groundbreaking technical breakthroughs before this film was made. It’s just a lot of hard work. All this stuff was storyboarded and the crew, which included Rob Bottin and Stan Winston, had to create the effects. One of the crew said they couldn’t get the "head being pulled off " effect to look real. The head pulled away too quickly. The crewmember tried sticking a piece of bubble gum over the spot where the head was to pull away from the neck and it worked. So they covered the neck with bubble gum.
Humor: Humor is such a great release in a suspense or horror film. It’s almost a ploy. If you can get the audience tense, they’re grateful for something to laugh at to relieve the tension. And there’s a lot of tension and humor in this film. Mac and the Doc enter the abandoned Norwegian headquarters. Mac says, "Hey, Sweden." Doc replies, "They’re not Swedes, Mac, they’re Norwegians." Well, it’s funny in context.
And the little things …
… like the foreground stuff Carpenter keeps throwing at you. Shadows flit past the camera, creatures grow in the foreground or skittle across the room in the background. Every piece of information that the audience has but the characters don’t creates suspense.
Well, that’s it. The original Thing was a great "Creature in the Building" film. In fact, it was the film that inspired George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. The Thing worked and audiences loved it. In fact, the critic for Box Office Magazine wrote "it makes Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man and all the other spine-agitators look like a troop of Boy Scouts." (IMDB) Well, I think he was a little over enthusiastic. Go to a video store and ask for a copy of Frankenstein, Dracula, or The Wolf Man. The kid behind the counter will just point to the horror section. Then ask for the 1951 version of The Thing. He’ll scratch his head, check the computer, call his co-worker up front who’s been putting away the porn for an hour now, and ask him. "Uh, I don’t’ know. Did you check the classics?" There’s a good chance they won’t have it. It took me two weeks and four video stores to find a rental copy. And I think the reason is that people want to hear realistic dialogue these days. The Thing From Another World has good dialogue, great for it’s day, but it doesn’t hold up well over time.
The remake, however, is an excellent Action/Adventure-Sci-Fi film. And even when the effects become passé, I think it’ll still prove itself to be a great film. Hopefully, you’ll be able to go into a video store in 31 years and find a copy in the "Classics" section. You can. I’ll be 92 and probably trying to remember what it was like to take a crap.
