The Thing (1982) [35mm Scan]
"Nobody.... nobody trusts anybody now..."
A Nordic helicopter interrupts the solitude of a research base on the Antarctic, where a seemingly crazed man is desperately trying to kill a husky with his rife. After defending themselves, members of the research team investigate the source of the disturbance and, before they realize what's going on, end up finding themselves at the mercy of the Thing. But the question becomes less of what is the Thing... and more of who is the Thing: how can you know who to trust?
John Carpenter's legendary horror movie is one that has grown with substantial standing as the years have gone by, first opening to the jeers of movie critics and indifference of moviegoers on release. (Among the vaunted ivory-tower arbiters of good taste, Gene Siskel was the only one who bucked the standing and defended it.) True, many of us might prefer other works by the same artist, because there's always that one movie that does everything for those select few. But then you've got some works of art where the movie does do nearly everything for everyone. Those are the movies that have the stuff of greatness to it, so that no matter how tastes change and refine, no matter how much new criticism it faces, like all great works of art, it endures, ready for the next generation to be blown away by it. And that fact can't be denied by anyone honest enough to admit it: The Thing is Carpenter's great one.
There's something more going on that has helped The Thing grow to have the reputation it has now: the relevant theme of loneliness in a civilization gone hostile, where no one can be trusted, especially with your own life. How many of us have had friends, family members, or those trusted with authority--officials, politicians, doctors, scientists, pastors--suddenly turn hostile on you when the good times are over and the bad times begin? And then you realize it's just you, and no one else can be replied upon... even we, ourselves, have come up short with others when they truly needed it. Our own failings precede us. And that's the tragedy of the movie that gives it depth beyond the obvious make-up effects of its horror stature--none of us can be trusted--epitomized by MacReady's line in his last recorded diary... a line so tragic and sad, he dares not even preserve it, opting to record over it by saying, "There's nothing else I can do... just wait."
These men are not heroes in the traditional sense, for what they've done in their efforts to stop the Thing from reaching the entire world, may just be fruitless after all; a hopeless sit-off between MacReady and Childs, where all Mac can do is laugh at their predicament and wait to see what happens. But if one of them is the Thing, it will only be frozen again, waiting and hoping for the rescue team's curiosity to get the best of them. The real horror is the kind that never ends, a nightmare we can't wake out of... unless we make the effort to overcome ourselves and learn again how to trust. Even when it means risking our own lives.
ADDENDUM: For my new pal Church, I got the deets on this scan.
First, an interesting
thing to note:
With open-matte scans, you get a flash of the splice between scenes on the original camera negative. Because the original negative is a collection of film snippets spliced together to make the whole movie, right? It's not seamless like a duplicate/interpositive print. So, on these scans, you'll catch the tiny splice marks starting on the bottom of the frame, then on the top of the frame one after the other on transitions, like this:
Another example is the edit Kubrick did on
The Shining, where he deleted the sequence with Wendy and Mr. Ullman in the hospital. You can clearly see the splice in the transition:
So, regarding this scan, it's another movie that holds up better with a used-up print, as horror shouldn't be pretty. The optical track is solid, with no issues, and we detected only a few splices during the watch. I hate the fact that the colour palette has been changed on 4K restorations in several scenes where the conditions are cold, like they're thinking, "Well, it's cold, so let's make it
blue! 'Cause people won't be able to tell it's cold otherwise, right?" Ridiculous.
This is now my preferred way to experience
The Thing. An excellent scan!
Loved the Kagemusha nod, Tuna. At the time I'd seen few Kurosawas and thought "Wow! Nakadai-san, much versatility, like Jeremy Irons doubleplay as P1 PROFESSOR BOOTY and P2 SHY W/ GIRLZ LMAO in DEADRINGERS!" Was amusing coming back to realise the man is indeed an actor, a goddamn transformer, again and again in Kurosawa's pictures and elsewhere.
could you rephrase that?
I should give Mariachi a go, now I'm in one of my every-few-years movie phases.
