SCI-FI MOVIE PAGE PICKS: THE THING (FROM ANOTHER WORLD) and THE THING

There I was - a Friday evening home alone after some social plans fell through (won't bore you with the details) with having nothing particular in mind to do for the evening. So I decided to get on my motorbike, rent a copy of the 1950s classic Thing from Another World to review for my page and get some Portuguese chicken takeaway on my way back. What better way to spend the evening? Oh well, I can think of a few, but So It Goes. . .

Now imagine my surprise when I saw the "special" on at probably the only videoshop in the entire country to stock Thing from Another World: rent the "original" movie and its "remake" for the price of one! Imagine sitting through Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai and the Western remake of sorts, The Magnificent Seven in one evening! Or how about La Femme Nikita and Point of No Return? Some weren't strictly remakes - the film version of Heart of Darkness and of course Apocalypse Now (which was merely loosely inspired by said Joseph Conrad story) and Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story.

And, of course, there was the 1951 Thing from Another World and the 1982 The Thing. This was a huge coincidence bordering on cosmic conspiracy - being so soon after I mentioned to a visitor to this site of how interesting it would be to watch both movies in one sitting.

Never having done this sort of thing before (I mean - have you ever sat through two versions of the same story in one evening) and not particularly fearing accusations of being a film geek (I drive a big bike - film geeks don't usually do that) I rented both.

And watched them.

Here are my unconsidered film school comparisons and observations:

• The remake is actually better. Believe it or not. I wasn't particularly crazy about it when it first came out, but it had some scenes, which stuck in one's head. Besides, how can one forget some of the film's sheer gruesomeness - of a head growing detached from its body and then spouting spider's legs? It is surprising how much I could remember of the film, considering that I first saw it in 1984 (yeah, it came out in 1982, but believe it or not it spent the years in-between on our beloved apartheid censors' "banned" list) and haven't seen it since then.

• A remake better than the original? Heresy you might shout - but go watch the 1951 movie again: what constituted scary back in the early 1950s no longer does I'm afraid. A pointy-eared alien no longer hacks the grade I'm afraid.

• The original isn't bad. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed it. In the beginning it is effective in setting up a sense of dread and even has one or two jolts along the way. Not bad for a Black & White 1950s movie. Unfortunately it doesn't maintain its chills - problem being said pointy-eared alien.

• The special effects in the remake remain special to this very day. Masterminded by the legendary Rob Bottin they are definitely a "landmark in gore" as critic Pauline Kael remarked. Think the chest-bursting scene in Alien multiplied by several times and you get the idea. However, the effects held up really good and are actually better than a lot of the CGI seen in the likes of The Faculty and so forth. Is it just me or is CGI no substitute some real clever model work and makeup? Made before the term CGI was so much as a glint in some programmer's eye, The Thing makes a lot of special effects in recent movies look like the work of amateurs.

• My! Have movies and times changed! All of the killings in the 1951 version occur off-screen, 31 years later John (They Live, Dark Star) Carpenter's version has most of the cast killed off in gruesome and graphic ways like having their arms being lobbed off with blood spurting and so forth. In the original movie, the members of the research crew consisted of upright Air Force pilots, idealistic scientists (who wants to communicate with the alien instead of just wanting to destroy it) and a pert secretary. No one swears, everybody smokes (back then everybody did you know!), alcohol consumption is restricted to social occasions and (almost) everybody co-operates and is well disciplined. Also, more importantly, no one wanders off by themselves like they do in almost all modern horror movies from Halloween to Friday the 13^th.

• Contrast this to the 1982 version: drinking is an acceptable pastime and definitely not restricted to a social occasions. In fact, when we first meet the character played by Kurt Russell, he is busy nursing his bottle of Bell's whiskey while playing chess against a computer. (When he loses, he spills his drink in the machine's innards causing it to short circuit.) Everybody swears, not everyone smokes but marijuana is on the menu for some of them, absolutely no one co-operates and everyone is out for himself and distrusts the others. Not exactly a well disciplined bunch. There are no pert secretaries. And everybody wanders off on their own for extended periods of time.

• Thus the square-jawed heroism of the Korean War era makes way for the cynical and jaded posturing of the Vietnam generation. Russell's character is a true Carpenter anti-hero in the line of his previous Snake Plissken role in Escape from New York (which he later reprised for laughs in Escape from L.A.).

• "Watch the skies," the journalist cautions the world in his radio broadcast at the end of the 1951 movie. The 1950s were to see more alien invasion tales such as War of the Worlds and Invasion of the Body Snatchers just to mention two, the only notable exception probably being The Day the Earth Stood Still. The other, being commies or McCarthy witch hunters (whichever way you read these parables), being the enemy. By 1982 the enemy is probably ourselves: "Let's sit here a while and see what happens," Kurt Russell wearily eyes the only other surviving member of the crew. Is he the alien? Or is Russell? We don't know and the screen cuts to black . . .

Copyright © September 1999  James O'Ehley/The Sci-Fi Movie Page