The Thing

Rating: 3/10 (30 January 2017)

The Thing, the 1982 film by John Carpenter came highly recommended from several close film sources in which I trust. It is a horror movie, it's directed by a horror master, what's not to love for a fan of the genre. No one was more surprised than me that The Thing couldn't even hold my attention, necessitating 3 viewings before I could complete it. Mental note: if you fall asleep during a movie not once, but twice, it just may not be the film experience for you. I persevered, however, because I truly thought I would appreciate the film. The film stars Carpenter's most often collaborator, Kurt Russell as a researcher stationed in Antarctica that is suddenly impacted by an alien life form. A seemingly engaging premise left a lackadaisical impression and further left me with the idea that I may not like John Carpenter as much as I thought I did.
During the first ****amn week of winter, a team of American explorers in Antarctica are shocked to find their base being swarmed by a Norwegian helicopter from a nearby base. When the helicopter crashes, the American team goes to investigate only to discover everyone at the base dead or missing. The team does find something of interest, however, when they happen upon the burned remains of an unidentified creature. The team gathers the charred remains, and take it to the base with them where they deduce that it is an alien life form. The most shocking aspect of the remains are that the creature can assimilate into any lifeform it inhabits, and it inhabits like a virus, easily spreading to person to person. The implications of this discovery mean that any member of the team may be inhabited by The Thing, creating tension between the group as they each struggle to distinguish between the unaffected members and the ones The Thing has taken over.
I don't even know where to start here. I'm not typically a science fiction fan, and this film had a much more sci-fi than horror feel to it. As far as Carpenter's other work goes, I've only seen Halloween and Big Trouble in Little China, hardly enough examples to lay blame with the director. The narrative seemed to rely largely on an ominous feeling that was never properly established. Maybe my main qualm lies with the poor title. I do know that this film is a remake, I have never seen the 1951 original, but in Carpenter's film, I never knew what I was supposed to be scared of. A shapeshifting organelle that inhabits its host without them knowing is a good premise for a fearful mood, but it never materialized as such for me. There seemed to be several opportunities for more (or better) scares that were not seized upon. I'm so disheartened to learn that the directors I thought I enjoyed were really just responsible for one or two films that I enjoyed rather than the director himself. Wes Craven immediately comes to mind as I have now seen a few of his films, none of which replicating the magic of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, for me. Of course, I must see more of Carpenter's work before writing him off, but The Thing isn't the film to convince me to put any of his films at the top of my watchlist.