Carpenter has officially blown me away

Rating: 10/10 (17 March 2003)

I've known who John Carpenter is since I was a kid-- a very young kid. My parents let me watch "Halloween" and "Escape From New York," which was one of my late father's favorites, maybe too young for some, but with a crowd that made them 'just a movie.' Yet, when I tried to watch "The Thing" at a young age, I was so disturbed I couldn't bare it. It didn't have the hero of Snake, or the novelty of Michael. Not that it was overtly realistic, but it started a little too slow, and then the whole things with the dogs happened... We had too many dogs at the time for me not to be disturbed... I quit, and hung it up until yesterday.
Now, I'm in film school, last semester we had an assignment to match the lighting techniques in "Halloween," and since I've revisited many of my old Carpenter favorites (and realize I still know "Escape From New York" by heart, and it's been years since I've seen it.) But, given the IMDB high ratings every time I went to his name, I decided to check it out.
"The Thing" is bar-none one of the most brilliant films I've ever seen, and certainly the best John Carpenter movie out there. The F/X are one thing, a brilliant thing, but the film doesn't rely soley on them at all. The cinematographery and the narrative are the leads. (Take out "The Thing," and you still have a story. The sub-plot alone could be the story-- guys cracking up under stressful conditions in the wilderness.)

The film looks pitched in low key light under extremely high key weather conditions. The interior scenes look like they were done at the same location, although they weren't. That pitch helps with the clausterphobic atmosphere, but also the dark mood of the story even before it happens.

I won't go with any spoilers, I am against them. But, the film's narrative starts at a level of distant, unaware, and unsure charactors and ends in a dark level of distant, unaware, enlightenment. Nothing else matters to the lead. Kurt Russell in no way displays the heroics 'I don't give a damn' attitude he did as Snake. He's burned out and it doesn't matter any more. He's still the hero, and not an anti-hero, because in the end he did all he could do. His means, in the end, did not justify his end-- and he states that well before the film ends.
The gore was harsh, but is well worth it, and amazingly real in and unrealistic circumstance of the main plot. I'm not a Sci-Fi fan, I rarely get scared by a movie (and there are some moments that honestly scare the hell out of me, even when they are predictable. It's the old Hitchcock 'bomb under the desk' trick.)
Also, the DVD is highly recommended. The documentary is a little slow, but ends up very interesting, especially when talking about the F/X, done by one man who was about seven years younger than me at the time.

Lastly, I want to mention that like many brilliant achievements by previously known directors, the film has much the same feel as some of his previous works at first-- music, shots, and pacing especially. When you realize, however, that Carpenter didn't embark in the same direction as usual, realize that he didn't use tactics that had already worked before-- by himself or anyone else-- on probably the biggest budget he had had before that time. Instead, Carpenter went darker and more realistic than ever before. That's rare with independent directors of today.