Monster Magic - THE THING

Well, June is over, and with it comes the last selection in my series inspired by Junesploitation.  And yes, I have once again neglected to mention that I was doing a theme month until it’s all over.  I did the same thing February when I highlighted African American lead actors, and again in March where I highlighted female directors.  There are probably others.  I should write myself a note in the future.  

For those who don’t know, Junesploitation was a thing created by the folks at the misleadingly titled F This Movie website.  It was designed to celebrate the many forms and definitions of exploitation cinema.  Those participating in Junesploitation chose which movies they watch, but a calendar is provided as a viewing guideline.  Each day of the month is dedicated to a particular subject, like Aliens, ‘80s Action, or Sybil Danning movies.  All you need to do is watch at least one that in some way qualifies.  

I found out about this challenge, I believe, on June 1^st.  Being a sucker for exploitation, I jumped straight in.  Since I was doing it anyway, I also decided to write about one of these selections a week.  I tried to pick the Sunday category, since I usually watch what I’m going to write about on Sunday anyway (seriously, I’m that slow).  I started with Animals (ALLIGATOR), went to Killer Kids (DEVIL TIMES FIVE), then Teenagers (DEADKIDS).  June ran out before the next Sunday (and because I missed the first Sunday due to my aforementioned lack of planning), so I’m going with the June 30^th category: Monsters.  Mostly I stayed with lesser known movies, but I wanted to finish big.  Presenting what I consider to be the most imaginative monster design ever: John Carpenter’s THE THING.

The Capsule: 

                                                                                                                                 

An alien craft loses control while exploring Earth and crashes into the icy wastes of Antarctica.  The poor pilot survives, but spends the next 100,000 years frozen solid until a helpful group of Norwegians dig it up and thaw it out.  Minor cultural misunderstandings arise from the alien’s greeting customs.  The situation becomes tense, and the alien decides it’s best to leave the Norwegian’s camp.  Even though the alien adopted the form of a cute Earth dog to make the humans more comfortable, the Norwegians can’t let things go and follow after it in a helicopter, shooting and chucking grenades.  Thankfully, it finds refuge at an American science station.  The Americans welcome the alien much more warmly, even allowing it to make friends with the other dogs in the camp.  However, just as the alien is opening up to its new canine comrades, xenophobia rears its ugly head and the Americans rush in and bring an end to all of the alien’s inter-species dialogue.  With a flamethrower.  From that point on, the American, led by the hotheaded MacReady (Kurt Russell), abandon all attempts at diplomacy and focus on mercilessly hunting down the alien, hereafter referred to, rather insensitively, as the Thing.  While the Thing is eventually able to develop a rappport with several of the more open-minded humans, MacReady, Childs (Keith David), and others become increasingly paranoid about becoming infected with the Thing’s radical new viewpoints on communal living.  Blair (Wilford Brimley) even goes so far as to sabotage the camp’s radio and transportation to ensure the Thing cannot spread his ideas (though it and Blair later reconcile).  Will the Thing finally break through the American’s distrust—and physical bodies—or  will MacReady’s self-destructive intolerance to alternate lifestyles spell the end for alien, human, and alien/human(/dog/etc.) alike?
 

I’ve probably seen THE THING dozens of times.  I was completely blown away the first time I saw it, and I cannot understand why people didn’t go crazy over this when it was released.  Of course, I can’t understand why people do anything, so that’s no surprise.  Even so, how could someone watch Charles Hallahan’s detached, upside down head spout crab legs and scuttle away and not be in awe at the creativity.  Even if they were revolted by it, no one had seen that before.

The creature design for the Thing is absolutely boundless.  Before the Thing, monsters were most often restricted to a man in a suit, like the Gillman, a giant or mythological creature, like any of Harryhousen’s creations, or an exaggerated but recognizable animatronic, like Bruce the shark.  Even when the monster didn’t match anything in nature, they still conformed to our basic ideas of what life looks like.  Arms are in reasonable places, it has a face, watch out for the teeth.  

The Thing was the first creature to abandon all those rules.  On one hand, it could take the appearance of any living creature it encountered.  It can perfectly mimic any animal or human.  This leads to the fantastic and completely justified air of paranoia throughout the film.   Shapeshifters are nothing new, from werewolves to classic Cold War sci-fi allegory pod people.  Those monsters were limited to shifting from one form directly into another in a linear progression.  As amazing as those transformations could be, we could see where they were going.  Even the three life stages of ALIEN, as mind-blowing as they are, followed a logical extension.

The Thing is not linear.  We never see its original form because it doesn’t have one.  It is a vast genetic amalgam of every other creature it has absorbed.  No need to choose when you can be everything at the same time.  It changes its body to whatever the situation demands.  Need to grab something, just throw out a few tentacles from your back.  Want to kill a guy quickly, turn your entire ribcage into a set of jaws.  Looking to freak out some dogs, split open your face like a banana.  It’s the ultimate extension of form as function.  

There is a great scene that didn't entirely register with me until this watch.  Blair is starting an autopsy on the twisted blob body of the recently fried Dog-Thing. He is trying to wrap his head around what kind of life form it is.  His first cut reveals the half-formed skull of something hiding under the skin.  If the body had remained functional for a few more seconds, it would have burst out and attacked anything close enough.  It is literally a thought made flesh.  Now that is alien.

Speaking of which, I’ve always been curious exactly what the Thing was composed of.  We get to see the faces of the absorbed station crew pop out like a rash across its body, and dog skulls are popular, but it was already carrying around some critters before it ever got to Earth.  The claws that tear out of its dog form aren’t from anything terrestrial.  The monstrous heads and tentacles are decidedly alien as well.  If there was an intergalactic version of 23andMe, the Thing's results would be fascinating.

Not only was the concept of the Thing perfectly realized, the effects that brought it to life were equally revolutionary.  CGI has gotten to the point now where this sort of radical shape shifting can be done smoothly and realistically (so to speak).  As good as they are now and will be in the future, the Thing was REAL.  The creature was made up of latex and cables and bladders, but it was a physical performance just like all the other actors on set (better than some, David Clennon as the stoner Bruce Dern wannabe Palmer was a bit one note).  It’s hard not to see any of its many forms as a real creature, even when you are specifically looking at it as an effect.  Even Thing-blood all by itself was a totally believable creature.  So, sorry David Clennon, you got upstaged by a dish of red syrup.  

I’m unfairly knocking Clennon only because it’s so hard to find fault with this cast.  Russel and David are known, legendary badasses. This viewing cemented my opinion that Brimley’s Blair is the unsung hero of the movie.  He is the first one to grasp the magnitude of what would happen to the world if this creature was allowed to escape.  His actions doomed everyone in the camp, including himself, but potentially saved the entire human race.  And his reward was to be locked up alone in the cold, guaranteeing his fate to join the Thing.

Along the same lines, it’s interesting how the crew divide into two groups, the ones who think there is a chance for them to make it out alive (like Nauls, Windows, pre-Thing Norris) and those who know that isn’t the point (MacReady, Childs, the doctors).  Donald Moffat’s Gary seems to be riding the middle, hoping for a miracle, but not willing to save himself over killing the Thing.

There are a few new details I noticed this time.

Richard Dysart looks pretty much the same as when he was on L.A. Law, except that he’s wearing a nose ring.  That’s a bold fashion statement for an old white dude in 1982.

The scene where MacReady checks on Blair through the door of the storage shed is heartbreaking.  The resolve that enabled him to destroy their only hope of escape is gone, and now he can't even bring himself to take the easy way out.  The hollow desperation on Brimley’s face when he's asking MacReady to take him back inside, and his line, “There’s nothing wrong with me, and if there was, I’m all better now” makes me think he hadn’t been infected yet, but he can see it coming.  We’ll never know for sure.

Finally, was every low to mid budget production from the mid ‘70s to mid ‘80s sponsored by J&B Scotch?  That green bottle was everywhere they pointed a camera in those days.  Did the company just call up any working producer?  “Say, I hear you’re going to be filming a movie.  Have you considered J&B for your bottom shelf, working class whiskey prop of choice?  I see.  Well, would a couple of cases of J&B change your mind?”  

The last shot of the film?  MacReady sharing a swig of J&B with Childs. 

Wait a minute, maybe that’s the clue to whether or not they are still human.  Even a 100,000-year-old shapeshifting alien would have more taste than to drink J&B.

C Chaka

Time To Put On The Sunglasses - THEY LIVE

Like horror movies, I like to have an appropriate theme when the holidays roll around.  While Inauguration Day isn’t exactly a holiday, it is an important event, so I wanted to pick a movie that exemplifies the specific mood.  My first thought was to go with something apocalyptic,  but I didn’t want to be so pessimistic.  Instead, I wanted something that more accurately reflected the challenges this new administration presents.  So I settled on John Carpenter’s 1988 political dissertation, THEY LIVE.  

Note: I try to be subtle with my opinions of our new President (except for here, and here, and here), but I must confess, this one isn’t going to be subtle.  If you are not a fan of heartfelt, half-baked commentary… why are you on this site?  That’s kind of my thing. If you are specifically not a fan of heartfelt, half-baked political commentary, you may only want to read the first half.  Go ahead and read the second half too, though.  You’re tough, you can take it.

The Capsule:

Nada (Roddy Piper), a down on his luck drifter, discovers that powerful forces in the government are deceiving and exploiting the American people for their own selfish gains.  Without realizing it, citizens are being bombarded with messages promoting apathy, social division, and unquestioning support of the traditional status quo.  Elite white businessmen and the super wealthy collaborate with the evil forces, getting richer while the middle class shrinks and the disadvantaged suffer.  Nada and his friend Frank (Keith David) join a grassroots resistance organization that has developed a way of seeing though the illusions and exposing the evil forces for what they are.  They have their work cut out for them, though, because the evil forces use their media platforms to publicly discredit the resistance and sanction an excessive police response to silence their enemies.  Nada and Frank have to fight their way to the highest levels of power if they have any hope of revealing the insidious plot against the American people.  Oh, did I mention that forces of evil are disgusting skull faced aliens with poofy ‘80s hair?

THEY LIVE is one of those movies that gets better with maturity.  I liked it when I first saw it in 1988, but I didn’t love it.  My favorite Carpenter movies at that point, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE THING, and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, all got the action started immediately out of the gate.  THEY LIVE takes its time.  The lengthy opening is all about setting a dreary atmosphere of hopelessness and socio-economic disparity.  Carpenter waits a full thirty minutes before showing the first alien.  That’s a long while to wait when you're a kid, especially when the trailer is wall to wall with crazy ghoul faces.  

Coming back to it more than 20 years later, though, I found the opening to be dead-on perfect, right down to its bluesy, haunting soundtrack.  Carpenter gives us time to not only invest in the plight of the lead characters, but of everyone struggling to get along in the world.  Being an adult having to worry about money and a familyvcompletely changes everything.  Not all of us can relate to the kind of poverty and hardship faced by the squatter camp where Nada and Frank are staying, but we can at least imagine it.  Unless you are one of those snooty and condescending rich bastards like in the movie.  But fuck those guys, they aren’t the intended audience.  I doubt this is a very popular film with venture capitalists and hedge fund managers, anyway.  

Nothing defines my deep admiration of this movie more than Nada and Frank’s epic, five minute long back alley brawl.  Nada’s eyes have literally been opened to the aliens’ hidden messages of conformity by a special pair of illusion dispelling sunglasses.  The conflict comes when Nada, who has reacted violently to this new reality, wants Frank to put on the sunglasses, too.  Frank does not.  Being stubborn, stoic men, they begin a discourse with their fists.  It is a clumsy, unglamorous fight that looks very authentic (it mostly was, the actors only faked the face and groin shots) and goes on until both men are completely exhausted.  Even though I appreciated fisticuffs when I was younger, I remember wondering why Frank didn’t just put on the stupid glasses and get on with it.  

Watching it now, I totally get it.  Frank’s resistance isn’t just sheer stubbornness.  Nada is wanted for mass murder (according to the news) and he is going on about aliens that only he can see.  By all accounts, he is a complete nutjob.  In addition to not turning him in, Frank actually gives Nada money so he can leave town.  He’s gone far out of his way for a friend he just met a few days ago, now all he wants is to be out of it.  If Frank humors this lunatic, even for a second, he risks getting entangled in Nada’s delusions.  At best, it could get him in trouble with the cops, at worst it could get him killed.  The most sensible thing he can do is make a clean break.  If it has to be across Nada’s face, so be it. 

I would have done the same thing as Frank.  Except that the fight would have lasted about twenty seconds before I woke up with a pair of sunglasses over my eyes.  Keith David has a few pounds on me.

Once Nada realizes what is really happening, he says, “Figures it’d be something like this.”  It’s a great line, because, yes, that would explain a lot about why society is in such bad shape.  It also lets humanity off the hook...kind of. Greed still compels some assholes to willingly sell out their species.  It  offers up a convenient excuse why the rest of us accept the state of the world, though.  The reality is that we don’t need aliens with subliminal messages to dupe us down the wrong path.  

John Carpenter wrote the screenplay (adapted from a short story by Beat Generation writer Ray Nelson) as a comment on Reagan era politics.  In some ways, THEY LIVE is an inverse of politics today.   In other ways, it is sickeningly accurate.  In the movie, the working class sees through the lies of an organization that works against their interest.  In reality, the working class elects a con man working only for his interests.  It’s funny that Frank cynically explains the Golden Rule, “He who has the gold, makes the rules.”  This is a quote that Donald Trump has actually said (source: his Facebook page).  He’s wasn’t being cynical.  

Trump’s secret message isn’t “Don’t Question Authority”, it’s “Don’t Question What You Want to Hear”.  He is an absolute master of manipulating the confirmation bias, when people tend to put more weight on statements that match what they believe while ignoring contradictory information.  We are all susceptible to it, but even in the political world, it’s rarely used with such blunt, calculating, and effortless impact as with Trump.  He is so good at it that he can make an indisputable lie, like “No one respects women more than I do,” (said on national television after his “grab them by the pussy” scandal) seem reasonable to his most ardent supporters, even when everyone else is rolling on the floor laughing or trying to force down the vomit.   

If I looked hard enough, I bet I could match up the THEY LIVE subliminal messages with actual Trump quotes.  In fact, it probably wouldn’t take that long.  It took me 0.5 seconds to find these on Google just now.

The greatest irony is that Trump convinced people that he was standing with common, blue collar Americans against the elite. Never mind the fact that Trump, living in a fucking golden tower, is the definition of elite.  Pack all of his unqualified billionaire Cabinet picks into a ball room and I imagine it would look exactly like when Nada and Frank stumble into a celebration for the aliens’ human conspirators, drinking Champagne and applauding the 39% gain to their portfolios.  

The only difference in that scenario is there is no way Trump would let a sellout bum like George “Buck” Flowers join the inner circle.  The most he would get for his collusion would be a hat.  Of course, given that Flowers just assumed Nada and Frank were fellow sellouts and gave them a full tour of the aliens’ secret command center, it might be the wiser policy.   

Luckily, there are a lot more people whose eyes are opened to Trump’s lies than there were to the THEY LIVE aliens (though not enough).  And the people who did vote for Trump aren’t stupid.  They were just looking for change and got caught up by a brash, unorthodox, and entirely unique campaign (although anyone who agrees with his racist, misogynist, bullying viewpoints can totally suck it).  Once Trump fails to magically bring back the obsolete manufacturing jobs he promised, or to be the most job producing president God has ever created, more eyes will open.  America will see him for what he is.  The realization will be gradual; we don’t have Nada to destroy the signal that clouds everyone’s perception.  It’s not going to be like the last scene where the woman suddenly sees that she is having sex with a decay-faced monster.  Unless her name is Melania.

C Chaka