A mess and a travesty of the 1951 classic

Rating: 3/10 (21 April 2011)

There is a good reason why the 1951 The Thing is a classic. Howard Hawks influence is obvious and it packs the excitement, bravado and camaraderie that he brought to his westerns. It introduces us to a variety of characters that are amiable and sympathetic, and balances that with the conflict that erupts between the scientists and military in dealing with the alien threat that confronts them.
Looking for anything of similar depth or entertainment value in John Carpenter's woebegone remake is pointless because it simply does not exist. This film adheres a bit more closely to the source novella by John W. Campbell Jr. Carpenter's version adopts an Invasion of the Body Snatchers mentality, wherein a creature "infects" others and takes on their appearances to move about at will. It is an interesting concept, but it becomes apparent that the sole interest Carpenter has is in crafting progressively gorier and grotesque effects to gross-out the viewer.
The film keeps the same setting in Antarctica and opens with some Norwegians attempting to kill a sled dog. The chase intersects with a group of Americans at a neighboring research facility, who think the Norwegians are crazy. When the dog is sheltered in the American facility, it is revealed to be The Thing of the title. The remainder of the film is basically a guessing game as to who is really human and who has become an assimilation of The Thing.
The storyline sounds infinitely more exciting than it plays out. Carpenter has little to no interest in the characters populating his thriller. There are no women at the base and the men have little to no discernible personalities. There is not a role that is not filled by a capable actor, but no one manages to make much of an impression. Even lead Kurt Russell - doing another one of his lamentable John Wayne imitations - just blends into the bland background of bottled testosterone. Unlike Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where it seemed a distinct tragedy that the central characters were being turned into cold, unfeeling beings, the characters in this film are already relatively emotionless and so we feel no tragedy over their assimilation.
It is easy to understand why Carpenter has no interest in plot, character development, or even building genuine suspense, his attention is too focused on the next special effects/make-up freak show extravaganza. All of the imagination seems to have been funneled into the next gore scene. The initial scene where The Thing departs its guise of the sled dog and launches an attack on the other dogs in the kennel is revolting on more levels than one can care to count. The dog's head splits open and the tentacled creature goes on a bloody rampage assimilating animals all around into a giant writhing wall of quivering flesh and fur that splits open in various spots to reveal writhing bloody innards. Animal lovers be forewarned. Full disclosure, when I initially attempted to watch this film (and being a fan of the 1951 original) I actually walked out of the theater shortly after this sequence. Several years later, I decided to give the film another chance and made it all the way through to the end.
Later sequences are just as repellent. Body parts fly to and fro, chests are crushed, arms are bitten off, limbs take on lives of their own and try to skitter away. Again, lots of imagination, but it would have been far more impressive if Carpenter had channeled this initiative into more substantial areas of his epic. At the time, this depiction was a bit of a surprise coming from Carpenter, whose thrillers had heretofore largely eschewed graphic violence. Here, he makes up for it a hundred fold.
Gradually the men are wittled away. Unfortunately, no one cares. There is no sense of urgency or concern for any of these people. They are all unknowable ciphers and easily interchangeable. We truly cannot tell who The Thing has infected less because of its diabolical nature than because the men are all written and played as colorless cookie-cutter tough guys from the average grade-C action film. Carpenter seems to have no idea how people would genuinely act in such a tense situation and there is no camaraderie amongst the men at all. None of them seem to be friends or work well together - they are a gaggle of lone wolf Marlboro Men braving the great unknown. Despite being isolated together and living in close quarters for months, none of them seem to know even the most minor of things about each other.
The vague, ambiguous ending with two of the characters resting amongst the carnage, sharing a drink and trying to ascertain if the other one is human or The Thing is exceptionally vacuous. For one thing, knowing that The Thing propagates itself through body fluids, why in the world would the two men chance sharing a drink from the same bottle? Then again, do we really care about either of these guys? The answer would be a resounding no.
Interestingly, the film has developed a cult following and fanatics talk about it like it is some sort of a classic. Unfortunately, nothing could have been further from the truth. At the time of release the film was a major box office disappointment and the majority of critical reviews were scathing. In fact, the only people who really seem to consider this some lost classic are gore hounds who think bloodletting should trump storytelling.