Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by AudioHead on October 04, 1999 at 12:36:02:

I feel it is appropriate to use John W. Campbell Jr.'s 1938 novella, "Who
Goes There?", as a baseline by which to compare the two films that strived
to bring it to the screen; that is, namely, "The Thing(From Another World)
released in 1951; and "The Thing" released in 1982. Keep in mind that I
consider Campbell's tale one of the best sci-fi horror stories ever written, and that it would be quite a feat to successfully adapt it to the
cinema.
The 1951 film, directed by Christain Nyby, deviated so much from the story
that it is difficult to draw many parallels between the two. In the story,
the alien is a 4 ft tall being with three red eyes, rubbery blue, wormlike
hair and multiple razor-sharp tentacles. This alien "chameleon" is so
intelligent that its species figured out long ago how to imitate any living
creature through DNA duplication and replication. This uncanny, insidious
imitation extended to the personality and mind of it's victims. The end
of the story further highlights its superior intellect by featuring a
strap-on anti-gravity device powered by a small atomic generator that it
built within the mere span of one week by scrounging spare parts at the
compound - coiled wires, radio tubes, coffee-tins, glass, magnets, leather
and cloth belts, etc. The alien was killed before it could make it's escape and eventually imitate the living composition of the entire planet!
In the 1951 film version, the alien is portrayed as an 8 ft tall hairless,
Frankenstein-like humanoid, with flesh of a vegetable-like quality which
needed blood to reproduce itself through seedpods. The film is standard
horrorfare, with the expedition crew uniting together to fight and destroy
the alien menace, which they eventually did, via electrocution. The alien
is not characterized as particularly intelligent, rather as a rampaging,
blood-thirsty monster; making it hard to imagine such a brute was advanced
enough to participate in interstellar travel. So, while "The Thing(From
Another World)" featurred excellent direction, acting, dialogue, score and
so forth under the watchful eye of producer/shadow director Howard Hawks,
I feel he took artistic license and deviated too much from Campbell's story. There was suspense and terror to be sure, but it lacked the pervasive paranoia that Campbell conveyed so well in "Who Goes There?".
In sharp contrast, director John Carpenter's "The Thing" both brilliantly
captures the alien's insidious chameleon-like powers (through Rob Bottin's
effects) and the paranoia it induced amongst the expedition's crew. Instead of bonding together as a cohesive unit as in the 1951 film, to
fight a readily discernable foe, they fragmented in the face of a remarkably cunning enemy capable of imitating any one of them; they become
deeply suspicious and paranoid of one another as any of them could be the
alien in disguise, and they literally ask, "is it really you, WHO GOES
THERE?", echoing the name of the novella's title.
The situation runs counter to classic character development, as how could
anyone be stable and well-defined with their core-identity at such risk?
Who whom? who's the good guy? bad guy? Perhaps a little unsettling to
viewers and critics. I think this film received a battering from movie
critics because they were weaned on relishing a steady, inexorable buildup
of suspense and inevitable resolution. However, in "The Thing", this suspense is permeated with a claustrophobic paranoia and sullen dread,
generating an atmospheric ambiguity - something the critics weren't comfortable with, hence, rejected. Combine this ambiguity with the critic's aversion to the graphic special effects, wholly appropriate to
the storyline, but misinterpreted by them as "gratutious violence and
gore", then one understands why "The Thing" got hammered in the reviews.
Here, as in the story, MacReady is the acknowledged hero, even before he
tested himself as genuinely human, for we instinctively knew he would be.
However, in the story, MacReady, with the aid of several human crewmembers,
kills the alien and in doing so, literally saves the planet. Whereas, in
Carpenter's film, MacReady, as valiant as he is, doesn't seem to be able
to totally stop the alien. Thus, the open-ended ending, with the lack of
closure somewhat disappointing to me. I immediately thought "sequel", but
have yet to see one.
Also, keep in mind that in the story, the alien starts and ends with his
original form, whereas in the 1982 film, the alien never has a definitive
original form, being relatively amorphous throughout.
In the final analysis, I like both of these films, in spite of their shortcomings; namely, the 1951 film's failure to adhere closely to Campbell's story, thereby failing to capture the essence of the imitative
alien and the paranoid atmosphere it generated; and the 1982 film's failure to remain faithful to the story's optimistic ending. Actually,
both films stand up fairly well when referenced to Campbell's chilling
tale, and even better when viewed as stand-alones. One thing is for sure,
both films have earned a secure place in my video collection.

- AudioHead