The Thing from Another World (1951)
I just watched The Thing from 1982 which is my favorite
horror movie but a number of people have talked about the original being really
good as well. I guess that I’ll have to
be the judge of that. Onto The Thing
(From Another World).
Instantly you see that the first difference is that this
movie takes place in Alaska and the North Pole while the remake is in
Antarctica. We see the Captain at an Air
Force base is sent to investigate something in the North Pole with a team one
night. They get to a research base up
there full of scientists who have found something in the ice. The Air Force seems to think that it’s a
plane crash. They get out there and find
a perfectly round hole in the ice. One
guy says “We’ve finally found a flying saucer!”
They attempt to free the thing from the ice with explosives
but manage to blow the ship up. Real
nice. They do find what looks like a man
frozen in the ice so they carve out the chunk with him in it and fly back to
the base. The Captain can’t get messages
in to his superiors because the radio is down and there are a lot of opinions
on what should be done with the alien.
They decide to do nothing and keep watch as it stays in the ice. Eventually it thaws out and the guard gives
it a couple shots but it gets away. They
manage to get the alien’s arm off and after some investigation they determine
that its flesh is very similar to a vegetable and their bullets won’t do much good.
53 minutes in and only dogs have died so far. 56 minutes in and two guys are dead. Looks like a new paragraph is all the movie
needed to pick up. A scientist discovers
that the thing can use blood to grow back lost limbs and also reproduce. The one woman helps them figure out that fire
is the way to kill it but the thing cuts off the heater meaning they are
running out of time to stay alive. They
set up a trap for the monster which becomes their last stand. The trap works and they fry the thing. Fin.
FAVORITE SCENE: When they blew up the ship. That made me laugh. The scientist growing the plants was cool
too.
FAVORITE LINES: “Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking.
Keep watching the skies!
PRENTITIOUS REVIEW: “The resourcefulness shown in building
the plot groundwork is lacking as the yarn gets into full swing. Cast members, headed by Margaret Sheridan and
Kenneth Tobey, fail to communicate any real terror.” The Vanity Fair Staff. Really?
It took a whole team to come up with that.
RATING : 6 vegan lollypops.
Want to know what I hate the most about that review? The fact that I totally agree with it. The story and first half of the movie I was
totally in to. When it came time for the
thriller part of the movie, I was never sucked in. I mean right before the big last stand at the
end of the movie, the characters are cracking jokes. There weren’t jokes being told in the
remake. Instead people were yelling at
each other in a panic as any of us would.
The scientist who wanted to preserve the thing did the best job acting I
thought. Let’s talk about the
thing. It was a giant blood reproducing
carrot. It kept being billed as being
way smarter than humans but walked incredibly slowly into a trap. While I think other Hawks movies like The Big
Sleep and Rio Grande continue to be great, The Thing From Another World’s
greatness doesn’t hold up. Maybe in 1951
I would have been freaking out but in 2012 I was a little bored. I just realized that’s 61 years. I’m thinking about moving the rating up half
a lollypop because it’s hard to expect a movie to stay scary for such a long
time and to just like it as an action movie.
Bride of Frankenstein wasn’t scary but was a great horror movie. It’s all very confusing,
ALTERNATE ENDING: The thing decides to be more of a bad ass
like its brother in 1982 and actually scares and kills some people. It kills everyone and humans are forced to evolve into cheddar
cauliflower.
WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE IF I WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER: Because
the thing was obviously not a serious threat (because no one acted that way) I
would’ve spent more time trying to woo the one woman in the North Pole.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE REMAKE: Things get real.
They blew it up!
Spooky?
This part actually was cool
AFI needs to update their list of 100 thrills
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