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Thingy Thing
Nov. 12th, 2009 01:13 amIn what may be a belated Halloween-fest, I’ve spent the last week getting acquainted first with the 1951 The Thing From Another World, and then the 30-years-later The Thing.* I was surprised that the ’50s version had a female character who wasn’t the Standard ’50s B-Sci-Fi Movie Girl—this one wasn’t a coldhearted man-hating scientist who pulls a 180 to a codependent screamer when the hero gives her some slimy conversation about acting like a Woman.
But for sheer slime, you can’t beat the KY-filled ’80s version. My sister loves it and has been trying hard to get me to share the love. Today I did, which meant she got to put up with a running commentary that went something like:
Wow neat spaceship model they should be wearing mufflers or something if they’re in the Antarctic which I don’t think has quite so many rocky bluffs good god dude put on a hat or something hang on how did that guy slash his wrists and then his blood froze so fast it should have slowed the bleeding hey look there’s the block of ice like the original movie although I assume they didn’t melt him out with a goddamn electric blanket I mean really criminy you bastards put on a hat especially the bald guy and somebody should tell Wilford Brimley quit chewing on that pencil eraser you JUST POKED INTO A MASS OF ALIEN FLESH he of all people should know better if this is winter at the South Pole there shouldn't be much in the way of daylight what gives I like the Agatha Christie-plus-slimy-monsters feel to this WHY THE HELL DOES THIS ANTARCTIC BASE HAVE A REFRIGERATOR.
Et cetera.
I wonder when I went from being a total chicken about gore as a kid to the kind of person who watches a scene of a dude pulling a nasty reddish blob out of a hideous mass of flesh and thinks PUT SOME BIGGER GLOVES ON YOU MORON. I used to be able to be frightened by shite B-Movies because the idea would grip me; now I get too distracted by admiring the craftsmanship.
Anyway, we also came up with some entertaining alternate endings for the movie:
1. You get to see the rescue squad show up in the spring, finding a couple of frozen bodies and taking them back to civilization, giving a rather more satisfying version of the cliffhanger ending.
2. The characters kill each other off until one insane survivor is left gibbering for the rescue team. Investigations show that they got rid of every trace of the Thing early in the film, and they were all just killing each other out of sheer paranoia. Kinda like if Monster A-Go-Go was a gripping psychological drama.
I liked the second one, but we did agree that it would lead to a disappointing lack of, y'know, Thing, so we forgive the movie for actually having a monster all the way through.
Plus, that way we got the dynamite scene, and I could stutter "Happy birthday, you thing from another world, you!" You just don't get that kind of setup every day.
*Starring, as my sister puts it, Kurt Russell’s Hair.
But for sheer slime, you can’t beat the KY-filled ’80s version. My sister loves it and has been trying hard to get me to share the love. Today I did, which meant she got to put up with a running commentary that went something like:
Wow neat spaceship model they should be wearing mufflers or something if they’re in the Antarctic which I don’t think has quite so many rocky bluffs good god dude put on a hat or something hang on how did that guy slash his wrists and then his blood froze so fast it should have slowed the bleeding hey look there’s the block of ice like the original movie although I assume they didn’t melt him out with a goddamn electric blanket I mean really criminy you bastards put on a hat especially the bald guy and somebody should tell Wilford Brimley quit chewing on that pencil eraser you JUST POKED INTO A MASS OF ALIEN FLESH he of all people should know better if this is winter at the South Pole there shouldn't be much in the way of daylight what gives I like the Agatha Christie-plus-slimy-monsters feel to this WHY THE HELL DOES THIS ANTARCTIC BASE HAVE A REFRIGERATOR.
Et cetera.
I wonder when I went from being a total chicken about gore as a kid to the kind of person who watches a scene of a dude pulling a nasty reddish blob out of a hideous mass of flesh and thinks PUT SOME BIGGER GLOVES ON YOU MORON. I used to be able to be frightened by shite B-Movies because the idea would grip me; now I get too distracted by admiring the craftsmanship.
Anyway, we also came up with some entertaining alternate endings for the movie:
1. You get to see the rescue squad show up in the spring, finding a couple of frozen bodies and taking them back to civilization, giving a rather more satisfying version of the cliffhanger ending.
2. The characters kill each other off until one insane survivor is left gibbering for the rescue team. Investigations show that they got rid of every trace of the Thing early in the film, and they were all just killing each other out of sheer paranoia. Kinda like if Monster A-Go-Go was a gripping psychological drama.
I liked the second one, but we did agree that it would lead to a disappointing lack of, y'know, Thing, so we forgive the movie for actually having a monster all the way through.
Plus, that way we got the dynamite scene, and I could stutter "Happy birthday, you thing from another world, you!" You just don't get that kind of setup every day.
*Starring, as my sister puts it, Kurt Russell’s Hair.
