every time it snows i like to rewatch The Thing. I once wrote a paper on it so i am going to repost for your pleasure. it’s not that great of a paper because i was told to focus on form and there are so many other things that you could write about this film. it was also a spite paper. i hated this teacher and she hated me and she thought horror was a stupid genre. so i wrote this in tribute and as a rebuttal for the whole class experience. i mean she made us watch Easy Rider for christ’s sake! but for now here it is:
Whenever I talk to someone about film and I mention that horror is my favorite genre many people are taken aback. They instantly associate horror as not being a valid part of film. There may be many films in the genre that are poorly done visions of torture and death and it may be hard to look past these films. There are, however, other horror films that are visions of the director and everyone else involved with the film. These films are successful in portraying horror as it should be and not of what it’s usually thought of. That is why I have always been drawn to the work of John Carpenter. His films are entirely a product of his vision. He writes, directs, and composes most of the music for his films. Among his films is one of the best works in the genre, The Thing. Made in 1982, this film is an artfully made masterpiece that is driven by Carpenter’s vision, his cast, dialogue, and music.
The Thing is about an isolated team of men who are in Antarctica. They are most likely in a military base that was set up to be a research facility. In the beginning of the film there is a shot of a spaceship crashing to earth. We are to assume that this was millions of years previous. Then the film cuts to a helicopter chasing and shooting at a dog. This helicopter flies into the camp that the film takes place in. They land and proceed to blow themselves up before destroying the dog. The dog is actually alien. The team can not tell this because that is how the Thing operates. It takes the shape of the species that it wants to assume and makes others around it believe that they are with their own kind.
The Thing is about trusting yourself, and the struggle to find trust in others while not falling prey to paranoia. The dialogue heavily supports this theme in its form. The characters in the film are often saying that no one trusts anyone. An example of this is when the main character, R.J. MacReady, is alone in a room by himself. He is talking into a recorder so that if someone finds their destroyed campsite they can discover what happened there. During this monologue MacReady says, “Nobody trusts anybody and we’re all very tried, nothing else I can do—just wait”. He has resigned himself to the fact that none trusts one another. When they are doing a test to see who has become a Thing MacReady also says that he is going to show them what already he knows is true. That means he trusts in himself to know that he is not the Thing. Many fights erupt as paranoia sets in. As one of the strongest characters in the film MacReady is always the one to break up the fights and try to establish lines of communication for the rest of the men involved. He trusts himself and is trying to establish trust with the other characters. One of the men infected with the Thing is Blair. MacReady and Blair have a conversation while Blair is locked in a supply shed. During this dialogue Blair says that he doesn’t know who to trust. As the Thing he is trying to implant distrust in MacReady.
Another way that Carpenter exposes the way the other men and the trust levels that they have in each other is by having several scenes in which the camera tracks along the room during a reaction to what another has said. There is a scene is which they have brought the Thing back from the other camp site to study it. It is grotesque and each character’s reaction is shown through this tracking movement. It is like sitting around a poker table and trying to evaluate what the other player’s hand is. This happens in another scene in which they have to burn one of their fellow researchers because he has turned into the Thing. The reactionary shot is similar in the way that the camera tracks around them exposing how they feel about the current situation. Using this shot makes us feel as if we are transposed into the film; Carpenter has successfully put us there. We are loosing faith and trust in ourselves because the others around us are too.
A large aspect of most film, horror especially, is the score. Using a score to manipulate viewers feeling during a horror film is essential to the genre. But does the score of The Thing reflect the theme of the film, or is it just a clever tool in producing tension in the viewer?
I think that since score is a common device used in most horror films then it definitely can be argued that perhaps the score of this film reflects the overall theme. It is not as easily uncovered as camera movement and dialogue. What the score effectively does in this film is not to displace trust within the characters but into the viewer. The score is like a separate actor on its own. It leads the viewer into believing certain things will happen within in the film. It is like Blair locked in the shed having a conversation with MacReady, yet instead it is having a conversation with us.
The beginning of the film is a prime example of this phenomenon. The music is ominous, but we don’t know why. It is following the dog and is foreboding. The dog ends up in a room with one of the men, who is only seen though his shadow. The music abruptly ends as does the scene. This is playing on the conventions of score to tell a story. The viewer trusts that something bad is happening because the music sounds like it is. Instead of relying on our own instincts to know that the dog may be the Thing, we trust the music to tell that to us.
In The Thing theme and form work together. The dialogue lends itself to the central theme by using trust as an issue amongst the characters in the film. Camera movement, tracking in particular, is used to follow the characters reactions to thoughts and feelings within the film. This displays the role that trust plays in people around us. The score makes us loose trust in ourselves. We trust the score to tell us a story instead of using our own thoughts to piece it together.
This may be only one interpretation of The Thing. The fact that it can be dissected like this proves it to be a complicated and layered film. I urge anyone who thinks of the horror genre and immediately dismisses it as something invalid and macabre to dig deeper into this genre. The Thing is not the only film that can be discussed in this forum, but it is a shining example amongst many and has withstood the tests of time.
