The Thing. 1982. USA. Directed by John Carpenter. Screenplay by Bill Lancaster, based on novel by John W. Campbell Jr. With Kurt Russell and Keith David. 4K restoration courtesy of Universal Pictures. 109 min.
Things aren’t always what they seem. In 1982, John Carpenter’s The Thing was a “bleak,” woodenly acted B movie that earned nearly universal scorn from critics and general indifference from the moviegoing public. And yet, though it appears unchanged on the surface, the film somehow metamorphosed into a stone-cold genre classic, a disfigured masterpiece beloved by critics and horror fans alike for its piano-wire tension, top-notch ensemble, jet-black sense of humor, and peerless practical effects by Rob Bottin. Ostensibly a remake of The Thing from Another World, a no-frills 1951 alien movie directed by Christian Nyby (and frequently credited to its producer, Carpenter favorite Howard Hawks), The Thing hews more closely to the original novella, Who Goes There?, about an Antarctic science team that discovers an alien invader who can perfectly mimic any organism. The film’s claustrophobic paranoia, and the fatalist bravado of the “hero” (Kurt Russell, in a career-best performance), may not have played well amid Reagan-era optimism, but subsequent generations have found plenty to relate to. According to the movie’s tagline, “Man is the warmest place to hide”—and apparently video store shelves are the best place to be rediscovered.
Object Cinema. 2016. UK. Directed by Darren Banks. 6 min.
A reflection on the life cycle of an idea and its many material and immaterial filmic forms; in this case the evolution of The Thing moving from the written page, then captured in celluloid, tape and digital code, and ultimately circulated globally online