The Thing About The Thing

In my essay Alienation of the Individual in Films About Aliens I discussed the ways in which science fiction movies about alien visitations reflected the social anxieties of the era in which they were made. There have arguably been three major cycles of alien invasion films, the first happening in the 1950's, the second in the 70's and continuing into the 80's, and the third beginning in the late 90's and continuing today. All three of these cycles contained very different patterns in how the alien visitors were treated, and in what way they were represented. 50's alien invasion films were characterized by a very pro-authoritarian attitude with the aliens almost always being cast as the villains (aside from a few rare exceptions such as The Day the Earth Stood Still) who served as an allegory for the paranoia of communist influence. These films were made at the height of the Cold War, when to the average American citizen, nuclear warfare was inevitable.

The later cycle involved a very different tone. Aside from a greater presence of movies about friendly aliens, these films were being made following several events in the 60's that had sparked a significant distrust of the government. In the later alien invasion films, the government is at best inaccessible, and at worst it is an active threat. Instead, the focus becomes one of individualism, in which the central characters are civilians who have to stand up against an oppressive government to resolve the situation. As you can see, there is a very distinct change that occurs among these films. The modern alien invasion cycle appears to involve a middle ground between the two extremes, with a positive view of the government but an emphasis the individual playing a crucial role in their victory.

However, there is one movie among the 1950's cycle of alien invasion films that manages to avoid fitting perfectly into the usual patterns of the era: Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World. This was an early entry into the cycle, and at first it appears to fit the standard formula of alien invasion films of the era. The central characters are a group of American Air Force men, who are treated as the voice of reason and who have to rally together everyone in the camp in order to defeat the Thing. This would suggest that the Thing itself is an allegory for the perceived "Red Menace"... the key word being perceived. On closer examination, it turns out to be a lot more complicated than that. If anything, this structure is merely a disguise to get past the censors. In actuality, The Thing From Another World is an allegory not just for the fear of communism, but criticizing Cold War politics in general.

While the central character of The Thing From Another World is an Air Force captain who serves as an authority figure, the movie as a whole displays a very critical attitude toward the military. Captain Hendry is not in fact the primary authority figure, he still answers to General Fogarty, and it is the "professionalism" of the military that proves to be a major hindrance in defeating the Thing. This is established early on when the "standard operating procedure" intended to uncover the flying saucer ends up destroying it. Once the Thing is brought into, Fogarty not only prohibits any public knowledge of the incident (and ignores Hendry's pleas to reconsider), but he also repeatedly issues orders demanding the protection of the Thing after it has started to wreck havoc. The only way to save everyone in the base is literally to ignore his direct orders. In other words, Hendry has gone rogue, foreshadowing the anti-authoritarian themes of the second alien invasion cycle.

Considering this realization, the real representative of the American government is the one person who actually tries to listen to the useless orders of General Fogarty: Dr. Arthur Carrington. He and the Thing both represent the two opposing parties: America and Russia, while the rest of the cast represents civilians on both sides who are caught in the middle. The Thing is the obvious, or perhaps more accurately, the perceived danger, when in fact the real threat is something far more local and more familiar, namely Dr. Carrington. Throughout the film, Carrington is stubbornly convinced that "The Thing" is a door to infinite scientific knowledge, to the point where he believes it takes priority over the lives of the men and women in the base and labels anyone who says otherwise as a traitor.

The Thing From Another World was released when the Cold War as at its darkest, largely due to the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Even for a time when it was normal to be afraid of the alleged "Red Menace", McCarthy had some very strong opinions on the matter. He was responsible for ruining the lives of many Americans through a series of "communist witch trials" in which people were persistently questioned about ties to communism. This is where the term "McCarthyism" comes from, as it refers to any accusations made against a certain party based on insufficient evidence.

Hollywood in particular was hit rather hard by this practice, with many previously-successful filmmakers losing their jobs based on unsupported accusations. Charlie Chaplin was exiled because he once entertained a friend with ties to communism, and wasn't allowed to return to America until the 1980's. Screenwriter Bertholdt Brecht, despite having shown his support for the American war effort through his film Hangmen Also Die, was also accused of being a communist and left one day after his hearing. It got so bad that the studios eventually created a list of the "Hollywood Ten", a group of screenwriters named for the blacklist so that the government would leave the film industry alone (ironically, some of these blacklisted writers were still able to keep working uncredited, even winning Academy Awards).

There was an obvious danger to the American People: the Soviet Union. This is what the government liked to paint as the enemy in the 1950's, and to a certain extent it could be argued that the danger was real since both the United States and Russia were pointing missiles at each other. Mutually assured destruction seemed inevitable, but at the same time there was another far greater menace. The threat was not the other country, as people would have been led to believe, but their own  familiar government. McCarthy himself and his persistent efforts to stomp out anyone who had the slightest reason to be suspected of communism was a more immediate danger.

In The Thing From Another World, the obvious danger is in the literal monster, The Thing. The danger it poses to the team is real, as it is trying to kill everyone and consume their blood, but in the end this is not the real enemy. It is actually a decoy, something to keep the protagonists distracted from the real enemy. While The Thing is dangerous, there is a far greater threat in the form of something familiar: a human and seemingly an ally to the protagonists. Dr. Carrington is introduced as a respected scientist, but as the plot develops, he starts to establish himself as a monster no better than The Thing.

Over the course of the film Dr. Carrington becomes obsessed with the Thing, convinced that he can learn from it scientifically. He becomes so passionate about his belief that the monster can be valuable to science that he puts it above the lives of everyone in the camp, going as far as to attempt to sabotage efforts to destroy it. He even goes on to identify any person who disagrees with his view as a traitor to humanity. The rest of the cast, which includes people from different sides, are practically civilians caught up in the pointless conflict between Carrington and The Thing. They also come from two different sides: the military and the scientists, but in the end find themselves on equal footing. This could be interpreted as suggesting that the American and Russian people were not so different from one another, and that it was simply their governments that are the problem.

On discovering this, it starts to become clear that The Thing From Another World is not about the fear of communism, but rather a criticism of Cold War politics in general. Neither Carrington nor the Thing is ever treated as being in the right. Both sides are just as guilty. Carrington himself emphasizes this idea visually when the Thing is first encountered, during which time he wears a hat that looks suspiciously like the types of headgear commonly associated with Soviet Russia, suggesting that the American government is not that much different. Scientific curiosity is used to substitute the government's fears of communism. Carrington's admiration of the Thing is the problem, and it is this ideology that he is pushing on everyone else in the camp, to the point where he will label anyone who disagrees as a threat.

There is one final element that serves to complete the Cold War Allegory. In real life, the Cold War was centered around American and the Soviet Union both pointing missiles at each other. The only thing that prevented a war from happening was the fortunate awareness of mutually assured destruction: that one side would attack, the other would retaliate, and both parties would be annihilated. In The Thing From Another World, the missiles are instead represented by seeds. The Thing is established to be capable of producing seeds that could potentially create more monsters like it and thus prove an even greater threat to humanity. Dr. Carrington also does something similar, creating his own garden and growing similar plants himself. Both sides offer a danger to everyone in the camp: mutually assured destruction.

The idea of mutually assured destruction comes into play at the very end of the film, when Dr. Carrington and The Thing finally confront each other. Carrington attempts, unsuccessfully, to talk to The Thing and is knocked aside. Immediately after, The Thing is also destroyed. The curious element is that the remaining characters seem to be better off when both are out of the picture. The critical wounding of Carrington and the destruction of The Thing represent the elimination of both the American and Soviet governments, and with that elimination the people of both nations are no longer caught in the crossfire of their petty conflict; thus bringing an imagined end to the Cold War. The thing about The Thing From Another World is that it is really quite daring for its time, presenting what on the surface looks like a typical 1950's alien invasion movie, but underneath contains a surprising layer of political commentary.

This Post was written for the Film Preservation Blogathon hosted by This Island Rod, Ferdy on Films, and Wonders in the Dark

The Thing That Came From Another World

John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece The Thing, based on the short story Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr., was a huge flop upon release. When it first came out, the film was able to make enough money to reclaim its budget, but was for the most part a flop that was heavily criticized. In his movie guides, respected film critic Leonard Maltin would go on to describe Carpenter's film as "More faithful to the original story, but a nonstop parade of slimy, repulsive special effects turns it into a freakshow and drowns out most of the effects." Evidently he didn't see the same movie I did, because I what I saw was a suspenseful claustrophobic piece about a group of men who are easily turned against each other by paranoia.

There are many reasons posed as to why. One of the most commonly cited is the fact that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial came out just before. That was a family movie about a friendly alien accidentally being stranded on Earth and engaging in light-hearted shenanigans as he tries to find a way home. Maybe people just preferred going to see the humorous and friendly alien over the terrifying shape-shifting monstrosity that featured in Carpenter's film, especially ironic given that when you really examine them The Thing is by far the better movie. Fittingly, the 2011 prequel, also titled The Thing, would have similar results at the box office (although with a slightly warmer reception).

Since then, like many of Carpenter's films, The Thing would obtain a cult following after playing on late-night television. Over time, people would begin to warm up to it, and now it is often recognized as a masterpiece of suspense and tension. What is easy to forget is that The Thing is a remake. Admittedly, it is a very good remake that might be better than the original, but what of the original? What was the original film like?

The 1951 horror film The Thing From Another World by Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks might not seem so scary now, but it was chilling when it first came out. John Carpenter himself first saw the movie in 1952 when he was about four or five, and according to him it was a movie so terrifying his popcorn flew out of his hands. To be fair, the idea of a "super carrot" (that description is literally used in the movie) is actually handled better than one would expect. 

The Thing is obviously a man in a suit, but the filmmakers made the smart choice to show it as little as possible. We really only get a good look at it right at the end, and up to that point it is only partially seen, kept in shadow, shown very quickly, viewed from a distance, etc. Instead most of the movie is about the characters trying to deal with the problem once it gets out. In keeping with Howard Hawks' usual style, most of the plot becomes one of character interaction complete with his usual rapid-fire dialogue.

In many ways it's not hard to see the influence this had on a lot of later science fiction films. Its basic concept is remarkably similar to the plot of Alien. Aliens even led up to a really big fight scene with one of the marines watching and constantly reporting movement on his tracker very much like how the men in The Thing From Another World use a Geiger counter to tell when the Thing is approaching.

Carpenter evidently took a lot of inspiration from this 1951 horror classic. According to him, part of what led to him making The Thing was when he read the original short story in high school and realized how different it was. The Thing From Another World has very little to do with its source material. The Thing here is a vegetable (literally referred to as such by the characters) that is capable of reproducing various plant life, hardly the shape-shifting alien of Campbell's short story and Carpenter's version. 

However, there are elements of Campbell's story that make it into The Thing From Another World. Among other things, the discovery of the Thing plays like in the story (an interesting contrast to the Carpenter film, which has a Norwegian expedition discover the Thing before it encounters the American protagonists). It is also the sled dogs who are the first ones attacked when the Thing gets loose, the Thing's severed arm suddenly coming to life is reminiscent of a plot point in both the book and the Carpenter film, and it is electricity that is finally used to destroy the Thing (in the book, this was the most reliable method, while Carpenter's version preferred flame). 

In most respects, however, Carpenter's version is probably the closest to the original short story and goes in quite a few different directions although Carpenter clearly drew from The Thing From Another World. Probably the most obvious similarity is the effect used for the title card (in which "The Thing" appears to burn into the screen) that would in turn be copied for the 2011 prequel film.

Carpenter takes a very different approach in his work, going back to the original story instead of directly remaking Hawks' film. Like Campbell's story, Carpenter opted to create the movie with an all-male cast (both The Thing From Another World and the 2011 prequel introduced female characters). This actually lends a new dimension to the story and an additional layer of suspense.

It was only a few years earlier that John Carpenter accidentally created the slasher formula with Halloween. Subsequently, one usually gets an idea of who lives and who dies. The virgin girl is usually likely to live while her sex-obsessed friends get killed off in overly-gory ways. By switching things up and making an all-male cast, especially one where none of them are teenagers, it becomes much harder to anticipate who will live and who will die.

The big element that really fascinated Carpenter when making The Thing was the claustrophobia and paranoia. In The Thing From Another World the characters are simply unsure when the Thing will make its next appearance. Carpenter's film has the added element where the Thing could be... well.. anything. Imagine you are stuck inside this camp, and this creature is present and imitating some of your partners so perfectly that you never notice when it happened. You know that someone isn't human, but you don't know who, and how do you figure it out?

The Thing also relies on a small degree of subjectivity, since the fact that several plot threads are left unresolved. We never find out for certain who got to the blood or when certain members of the team were infected. Fuchs disappears for a while and later his body is found burned outside and we only get a few guesses as to why. Nauls disappears entirely in the film's climax (although there were practical reasons for this, he was originally supposed to be ambushed by the Thing like Garry but they couldn't get the effects right). Special mention goes to Blair, whose actions throughout the movie can take on whole new meanings depending on when you believe he was infected by the Thing.

The 2011 prequel, also titled The Thing would try and recreate that same sense of paranoia and claustrophobia and while not as successful it is a worthy effort. As unnecessary as a prequel was I can't fault the director for taking on the project (it was originally supposed to be a remake of Carpenter's film, which in turn was already a remake of The Thing From Another World, it's not hard to see where a prequel would have been preferable). Looking at that film, I get the sense that it was a group of fans of Carpenter's work who went in knowing they'd never top it and just did their best with the studio restrictions.

While I would still be interested in seeing a directors cut of some sort, given that the studio interfered a lot with the final product (they did originally use animatronics before the CGI was forced in against the will of the filmmakers), I can appreciate the effort that went in. The attention to detail at times is amazing and you can really tell the production crew wanted to be faithful to Carpenter's movie.

Ultimately, I'm not sure one could ever truly capture the sense of dread that came with the Norwegian Camp sequence of the 1982 film. In Carpenter's film, nothing particularly scary actually happens when Mac and Copper arrive at the Norwegian camp. What makes the scene so dreadful is just the knowledge that something really frightening happened here. The damage to the camp, the dark lighting, and even the frozen corpse of a man that cut his own throat open with a razor blade make that much clear. However, the 2011 prequel might be the closest anyone could get to achieving that aim.


Bringing the whole trilogy full circle, it is apparent that the 2011 prequel may actually have drawn from, in addition to Carpenter's The Thing, Hawks and Nyby's The Thing From Another World. This becomes most apparent when we look at a particular character from each. In the 2011 prequel, there is a character named Sander who comes into conflict with the other characters. He is fascinated by the Thing and even after it escapes and proves itself to be a threat he becomes determined to study it and understand it.

Another element that made Carpenter's film work so well was that all of the men tried to be professional. They made (sometimes fatal) mistakes but they seemed like real, rational people going up against something the likes of which they have no idea how to deal with. As the scientist whose pursuit of knowledge endangers everyone around him, he likely did not draw from The Thing, but The Thing From Another World had the very similar character of Dr. Carrington. Like Sander, Carrington was a scientist who was so obsessed with studying the Thing he is willing to put everybody's life at risk, even going out of his way to sabotage efforts to destroy it. It's not too hard to see where the connection comes in.

Ultimately out of all three "Thing" movies, Carpenter's is undoubtedly the best. That is the one that really has the fear and suspense, with effects that still hold up today and a sense of paranoia that allows it to continue to be effective on multiple viewings. That said, both the others are still decent and enjoyable movies in their own right, even if they're not as impressive.