Cold Days in Hell

The Thing is, well more accurately the Things are - a series of films based on a novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. originally under the pen name Don A. Stuart, published August 1938 in Astounding Stories. For its time, the story is pretty graphic and quite ahead of its time in terms of theme. The idea of a creature able to mimic other life forms precisely on a genetic level was new and predated Watson and Cricks discovery of DNA in 1953 by quite a margin. Although Campbell doesn't refer to the DNA in the story, the concept is clearly evident.

The first outing based on the story was Howard Hawks 1957 film 'Thing from Another World'. This took the basic plot elements of an antarctic team of scientists discovering a ship and its sole pilot entombed in the permafrost. I first came on this film by accident, one evening in the late sixties when I came home from a family outing to see the pivotal moment when the team outline the circumference of the buried ship in the ice after finding a strangely aerodynamic fin protruding from the ice. Its interesting to see the scientists all wandering about the sub-zero climate in good stout overcoats and sensible shoes.

 It seemed a promising start and indeed the claustrophobic base and further discoveries mirrored the story quite well, until the actual 'Thing' appeared (actor James Arness in shabby prosthesis) shambling about the corridors, looking every inch like Karloffs Frankenstein monster. This was further confused by the premise that the Thing was half plant and half man, having sharp thorns on his hands and a small garden of bloodthirsty plantlets. For its time, the film has a great classic horror vibe, overacted and trying desperately to catch the fifties zeitgeist of 'flying saucer terror'.

Campbells original story described the alien when it was dug out of the ice and speculates that the tryclopian, blue skinned body may have been the beings original form, the creature reverting to its natural state as it slipped into hibernation. Wayne Douglas Barlowes book on extraterrestrials in sci-fi illustrates the creature well and was my first introduction to the original story. You can just make it out at the top centre of this scan, next to the demonic Overlord.

John Carpenter picked up the story in 1982 with his gutsy remake, a box office flop, but one of my favourite ever alien films. This followed the original story more accurately and some of the alien designs and special effects were outstanding. Carpenters Thing stressed the alien and the metamorphic nature of the beast, as it called upon its genetic memory of all the alien creatures it had encountered, developing a sinister arsenal of claws, spines, tentacles and teeth in its desperate race to propogate itself. Some of the scenes were rich with black humour as well as gore, the film isn't for the weak disposition, but makes up for it with some hilarious one-liners and amazing creations. Probably one of the best scenes is after the Thing has attacked several station members and one of the more portly staff suffers a heart attack. Until this point, its difficult to discern who may have been exposed to the Thing and attention is clevery diverted elsewhere until the the guy is on the operating table about to be defibrillated and his chest opens into an alien maw lined with razor teeth, neatly chomping off the doctors arms! After the Thing is quickly torched by Kurt Russell, the sheer tenacity and drive of the Thing to survive is demonstrated as the head of the unfortunate on the table detaches amid the flames and drags itself across the floor with a whip like tongue. Hiding under a desk, it quickly extrudes six spider legs and a pair of crab-like eyestalks and makes a dash for the door.

The main theme of the 1982 film revolves around the discovery of the Thing and its ship, but by a separate team of Norwegian scientists. By the time the Thing is rediscovered by the american team, the norwegians are all dead and the base in ruins with corpses littering the area. Many questions are raised as to what had happened, some of which are answered by a brief section of video tape showing the scene where the team outlines the buried vessel, but the full story remained a mystery. This is where the recent remake of the Thing comes in, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and written by Eric Heisserer. The film is in effect a direct prequel to Carpenters film and takes advantage of current FX technology to render the Thing in all its glory once more. As it is a prequel, it would make sense to watch the 2011 version first, but as a lot of people will have already seen the 1982 film and because the way it sets the scene, asking 'why did this happen ?' I think its better to watch them in chronological order, with Carpenters first.  But the important thing to note is that the 2011 Thing is far and away the best of the three, the attention to detail relative to Carpenters story is minute and the effects are excellent and its not even remotely funny!


When Carpenters Thing first appeared on the cinema, I recall the audience laughing out loud at the opening titles, when the word 'Thing' burned through the dark on screen. I didn't find it at all funny at the time and enjoyed the film tremndously, I loved Ennio Morricones score too and bought it on LP. What I didn't know at the time, though was there were actually Thing-based toys! In the course of writing this article, I came across a website which shows the marketing blunders attending the release such as a Mattel Thing action figure and a Sno-Cone Maker!


For anyone who wants to go back to the original story for a truly excellent read, the novella and some background information to the films is available here.