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Now Showing: The Thing (1982)
It’s a tried and true trope of horror—and of life—that monsters come in the night and hunt us in our most isolated and vulnerable moments. And the most terrifying monsters are those that lurk within. In stories such as Steven King’s The Shining or Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, the monster literally lurks within the man, boiling forth to commit atrocities once he has been left alone with himself a little too long. In John Carpenter’s 1982 pulp horror masterpiece, The Thing, the terror of isolation, parasitical evil, and grotesque malformation of the body comes on a gust of frozen arctic air. The monster—an unspeakable evil—can inhabit and transform anyone, and you may not know it until it’s too late.
The film opens as a helicopter flies low over the arctic wastes while a passenger with a rifle takes potshots at a fleeing husky. The intensity with which the airborne hunters pursue the animal quickly curdles any goodwill we might have for them. There must be something wrong with these guys. The crew of a remote research station, hearing the gunshots and the approaching helicopter, arms themselves and exits the building to see what’s going on. The husky runs to them, the helicopter lands, and then we know the pilot and passenger are crazy: they try to kill the dog with a stick of dynamite, blowing themselves up instead.
It’s quite an intro to the world of The Thing, and at first blush it feels both uncomfortable and unremarkable. The crew of the research station is understandably nonplussed. They decide the attackers, whom it seems are researchers from a nearby Norwegian research station, must have gotten cabin fever and gone mad during the long arctic night. It’s only when MacReady (Kurt Russell), a helicopter pilot with a cowboy hat who is always ready for anything, and the chief scientist go to investigate the burned remains of the Norwegian outpost that we learn what’s really going. The Norwegians, all dead and burned to a crisp, seem to have recovered the remains of a crashed alien spaceship buried deep in the ice. And then it all goes to hell.
Without giving away too much, the monster has the ability to infect and then subsume any living creature it comes into contact with. All it takes is a drop of blood or slime or mucus, and it’s got you. After a few minutes, it’s impossible to tell the monster is inside. Until it attacks its next victim. What ensues—almost immediately after the discovery of the Norwegian camp—is a game of hide and seek with deadly consequences. The only problem, no one knows who they’re hiding from until it’s too late. Except MacReady, of course. He’s on it, with a shotgun, flamethrower, and lots of dynamite.
The combination of Russell and Carpenter is pure dynamite. The Thing is one of the great films from Carpenter’s oeuvre, and like Escape from New York, the movie embraces not just its pulpiness but also the ability of Kurt Russell to utterly dominate the screen with hammy grit. It’s worth remembering that in 1966, Walt Disney himself had recognized Russell’s genius with his dying words, “Kurt Russell,” scrawled on a piece of paper. Russell at the time was one of many child actors signed to lengthy exclusive contracts at Disney, but it seems that the dying studio chief recognized the natural charisma that would eventually make movies like The Thing such a success. The Thing is proof that the wildest concepts can succeed when paired with the right star.
All of that being said, it’s difficult to put a finger on exactly why The Thing holds up as one of the great horror movies ever made. The special effects are good but not great. The performances are over the top. The dialogue has the punchiness of a comic book. MacReady’s costume is ridiculous. But something about the combination is deeply disturbing, and it will burrow into your head, infecting your dreams and waking moments when you find yourself, just momentarily, all alone. And in the era of coronavirus, a hidden, parasitical evil that can lurk within anyone feels chillingly close to home.
The Thing is streaming on Showtime.
“Please Sir, I want some more!”
As the nation careens towards the election, I have been reading The Adventures of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. It’s incontrovertible that Dickens, were he alive today, would detest Donald Trump. The world the author paints in Oliver Twist is one in which wealthy men cook up methods of “saving” the poor, destitute, and sick via workhouses, indentured servitude, snake oil and poverty diets, all of which really just amount to strategies of exploiting them until they succumb. Trump University and exhortations to ingest bleach if sick would fit perfectly into the reality that the young orphan inhabits.
The choice between starvation and work dominates Oliver’s life, and indeed, there are millions of Americans right now who are in a similar predicament as government benefits dibble away. The line “please sir, I want some more” now seems hackneyed and almost laughably quaint, but almost 200 years after the book was written, millions of people in one of the wealthiest nations in history are reduced to just that. I’d say “shame!” but we all know it’s a feeling unfamiliar to the President. Instead, all that’s worth saying is “vote!”
What’s his middle name?
It’s that time of year again. As Halloween draws near, why not enjoy the scares brought by none other than America’s favorite guy in a pump suit. You know who I’m talking about… It’s DAVID S. PUMPKINS!
Any questions?
Reading List:
The Adventures of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is a classic that, sadly, remains terribly relevant. As someone who has always detested the movie musical, I had assiduously avoided reading the book until this year. It’s well worth it, though, and Barnes & Noble has a nice hardcover volume (leather bound with gilt edges, even!) that includes The Adventures of Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. And at just $24.99, it’s a steal.
Over at The Atlantic, be sure to check out “Why the Alt-Right’s Most Famous Woman Disappeared”. It’s a dark and disturbing window into the lives of women in the alt-right.