The Thing (1982)

My first experience with John Carpenter was Ghosts of Mars, which is pretty terrible.  When I left the theater after the movie, I remember wondering aloud why someone would want to put their name above the title of something so obviously bad.  In the intervening years, I have seen many other Carpenter movies, and now know that the man is capable of directing some truly great films and some truly unfortunate ones.  With that understanding and wisdom, I approached John Carpenter's The Thing for the first time.

It is winter in Antarctica, 1982.  Because you need to know what season it is to justify snow in Antarctica.  The American research station down there is taken by surprise when they hear gunfire and a helicopter approaching; it is a chopper from the Swedish research station, and they appear to be trying to shoot a dog.  The dog, being fairly smart, decides to run to the American camp for cover; the Swedes, who managed to miss the dog several times over several miles, despite having a sniper rifle, accidentally crash their helicopter.  Before the Americans can react, a surviving Swede leaves the wreckage of the chopper, tries to shoot the dog, and instead shoots an American in the leg.  That's enough for the Americans to put the Swede down.

Not only are the Swedes crap shots, but their winter clothing choices are very suspect.  Is it ever warm enough for bikinis in Sweden?

So...why were the Swedes trying to murder a dog?  Helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell) and another researcher, Copper (Richard Dysart) fly to the Swedish research center to find out.  What do they find?  Dead people and signs of attack.  They also find some evidence that the Swedes had found something buried within some very old ice, as well as a mostly burned and at least partially human corpse.  So...what does any of this have to do with a Thing?

Aunt Petunia's favorite nephew wants answers or royalty checks, Carpenter!

Well, it seems that the Swedes dug up a frozen alien that can assimilate any animal and then assume its form.  For instance, it can (more or less) eat/absorb a person and then walk around looking like that person.  So, if you know there's a Thing in your group, you don't know who to trust.  It's not limited to just people, though.  In fact, there will soon be proof that it can disguise itself as a dog...

The Thing is an adaptation of the famous science fiction story Who Goes There? by legendary sci-fi editor John W. Campbell.  It is also sometimes credited as a remake of sci-fi movie classic The Thing From Another World, but the two are pretty significantly different; let's just say they take their inspiration from the same source and adapt it to their needs. 

All right, let's get the obvious stupidness out the way early.  In a movie where you don't know who to trust, the smart thing to do is to stay together as much as possible.  This is a sci-fi movie with more than a little bit of horror thrown into the mix, so it's safe to say that the characters are not that smart.  To be fair, the alien enters their group before they have any knowledge of its abilities, and they do make some efforts to stay in groups, but there are several occasions when the characters go off on their own anyway.  That is, by far, the weakest part of this story, so you might as well know that now.  If you can't get past that, I understand.  However, if you are willing to look past that obvious bit of horror movie idiocy, I think you'll really like this movie.

The cast is all male, which shouldn't be important, but I think it is.  How many survival-type movies throw in an unnecessary romantic interest?  And, since this was made in 1982, there is no hint of a homosexual romance, either, so there's no chance for any whiskey-soaked winter nights with Kurt Russell, fellas.  That gender casting allows this film to focus on the story with no subplots, which is nice.  "But what about Adrienne Barbeau?"  Okay, fine, the old school DOS-wannabe computer in the film is voiced by her, but I don't think that should count.  This movie focuses on suspense, which is exactly what you want when the question is "Who can you trust?"

The acting isn't fantastic, but it is definitely solid for a plot-driven movie.  Kurt Russell is pretty cool as the level-headed lead, and he comes across as believable as someone willing to do whatever it takes to solve this Thing problem.  This was only his second important non-Disney movie role at the time, so seeing him be such a tough guy was, at the time, an impressive stretch for Russell.  Wilford Brimley, who I don't normally care for (unless he's being a curmudgeon), was pretty awesome as the doctor who realizes the whole you-can't-trust-anyone problem early in the film and freaks the hell out.  Plus, you get to see some one knock him the eff out, and that was awesome.

He gets laid out in this movie.  Take that, diabetes!

This was Keith David's first credited film role (he was an extra in the Francis Ford Coppola-directed spinoff Disco Godfather), and I liked him.  David is a pretty solid supporting actor, even if he is often in mediocre movies, but this was a pretty impressive debut.  There are some other recognizable actors in the movie, like Donald Moffat, David Clennon, T.K. Carter (from Good Morning, Miss Bliss fame), and Richard Drysart, but they are mostly just adequate supporting cast members.

I really liked John Carpenter's direction with this film.  I love that he keeps the story taut, I like that none of the actors are too melodramatic (a hard task, when just about every character freaks out in a movie), and I really liked that he was able to step back and let other people handle certain tasks in the film.  Carpenter is kind of a one man film force, often directing, writing, and scoring his films, so it was nice to see him make an enjoyable collaborative movie.  The score is done by Ennio Morricone, and while it's no The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, it's still pretty good.  More importantly, it's not synthesizer-heavy for a change, like so many Carpenter scores.  The script was written by Bill Lancaster, the guy who did The Bad News Bears.  While that may not sound like a good fit for this movie, I thought he did a perfectly satisfactory job.  More importantly, that division of labor allowed Carpenter to spend more time working with the special effects (most of which were handled by The Howling and Star Wars veteran Rob Bottin), which made this movie so noteworthy.

Yes, the special effects in this movie are definitely the main attraction.  Why?  For starters, the dog monster.

These special effects all happen on-camera, which makes them extra awesome to watch.  Are they gross and slimy?  Absolutely.  Are they twisted and weird?  Most definitely.  Do they look good by today's standards?  Let me put it to you this way: The Thing is as good of an argument as you're going to find for good old-fashioned special effects and make-up.  It's that impressive.

The other thing I like about the movie is that it approaches the problem with logic.  Well, aside from letting people wander off on their own, it does.  There isn't an extended period of time where the audience knows what the problem is and the characters keep walking into traps.  The Thing is identified early and treated like the threat it is.  For me, that's the most important part of this movie.  I hate watching potentially good films waste my time with stupid characters.  When things like this show up, the cast of The Thing mans up and gets to killing.

That no-nonsense approach, combined with the amazing special effects and otherwise respectable filmmaking makes The Thing better than perhaps it should be.  And if you really want to, you can look at the film as an allegory between the East and the West during the Cold War.  I don't particularly care to approach it like that, but the subtext is certainly there.  And the ending is as perfect of a guy-movie ending as you're going to find; just about any other director would have copped out a little bit at the end, but Carpenter created a pretty great conclusion that stayed true to the logic of the characters, and that deserves respect.

10 to Midnight

Do you know something that you never hear Charles Bronson referred to as?  If you guessed "Hispanic," then you haven't seen Once Upon a Time in the West.  No, I was thinking of the phrase "actor's actor."  I'm not saying that Bronson didn't make some good (usually ensemble) movies, but his work was never a tour de force of the craft.  You already knew that, but I think it is important to point that out before discussing 10 to Midnight.

This film tells the story of a Los Angeles police detective, Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson) and his hunt for a serial killer.  The killer in question has a very particular MO.  He finds a girl he likes, makes obscene phone calls to her (partially in Spanish), and eventually gets completely naked before stabbing his victim to death.  The police have no leads, but Kessler has a hunch that the wealthy, socially elite Warren Stacy (Gene Davis) is the killer, despite several strong alibis.  Kessler's hunch is correct, but he is never able to get any evidence to back up his claim to others, or even to verify it to himself.  Sounds like a typical detective story so far, right?  Well, that takes up close to an hour of this 100 minute movie.

It then makes a peculiar shift in tone from a detective story to a call to vigilantism; Kessler plants blood evidence from a murder victim on some of Stacy's clothes to get Stacy arrested.  When Kessler's partner (Andrew Stevens) figures that out and refuses to back Kessler's play, Kessler admits to planting the evidence and Stacy is released.  You would think that conflict would take quite a bit of time, but it happened in about the time it takes to read that sentence.  Kessler then starts to do his best Dirty Harry impression and openly stalks Stacy in public.  Stacy gets mad and does the most logical thing a serial killer can do: punish the man that clearly has little to no problem going outside the boundaries of the law to catch you, and murder his daughter.  Serial killers are funny like that sometimes.  The film reaches a climax with Stacy, buck nekkid and armed with a knife, chasing Kessler's daughter (Lisa Eilbacher) through the curiously empty streets of Los Angeles at night.  SPOILER: When Stacy is surrounded by the police, naked and armed in the street, he tells Kessler that he will plead insanity and eventually get out of jail, and then he will kill Kessler's entire family.  Kessler just says "No you won't," shoots him in the head, in front of about thirty policemen, roll credits, the end.  Well, that wraps things up with a nice little bow, doesn't it?

With a story that "good," you can safely assume that the acting is around the same level.  Yes, Charles Bronson is the lead here, so you know that he will perform with all the energy of a mustachioed cactus, but surely the other actors will pick up the slack.  Or not.  Lisa Eilbacher (of Beverly Hills Cop fame) and Andrew Stevens (of Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure, "fame") managed to spark a fairly unconvincing romance on the screen.  It's one of those movie romances that start out with the characters being all like, "I can't stand him/her" and then, magically (because there is no on-screen time given to the development of their relationship), they admit to a mutual attraction and affection.  Blech.  Gene Davis plays the killer and they decide to spend equal parts of the movie shooting from his point of view (okay, it's kind of a slasher film, that's fine) and from behind while he's attacking people.  That means that his butt gets about as much screen time as his face.  If they had just stuck some googly eyes on his butt, they wouldn't have needed to bother with the face; he's quite the actor, believe me.  There are some noteworthy actors in small roles, though.  A young Kelly Preston plays one of Eilbacher's roommates, who is apparently deathly allergic to knife wounds.  Wilford Brimley plays Bronson's police captain, although I have a hard time judging his work; whenever he speaks, all I hear is him rambling about oatmeal.

Director/co-writer J. Lee Thompson was certainly no stranger to serial killer movies or even vigilante movies at this point in his career, but the man had definitely peaked by 1983.  When a director willingly works with Death Wish sequels-era Bronson, you know they have really given up trying.  Thompson later directed Death Wish 4, too.  I blame Thompson for a lot of this film's problems.  The pacing is very lopsided; the vigilante part is not foreshadowed well, so it feels very abrupt, although nowhere near as abrupt as the ending.  Of course, the acting is just terrible, but some of it could have been fixed by just suggesting that Bronson not read his lines like he didn't understand the words.

The worst aspect of this movie is its lame attempts at being intelligent.  Thompson throws a lot of pseudo-psychology in the script and it just comes off as corny.  Why does Stacy kill all these people?  Because he hates his mother.  Oh.  I'm surprised there aren't more teenage girls out murdering strangers in the night.  Even Bronson gets in on the psychology, saying that "anybody who does something like this, his knife has to be his penis."  So...your best suspect is a bed bug?  Isabella Rossellini would be so mad!  And yet, there is no explanation given for the killer's motives.  Yeah, he seems to hate his mother, but if a movie is going to waste my time with stabs at couch psychology, then it might as well give him a tragic origin.  If he's just supposed to be a jerk monster, then why not cut out those motivational scenes and save us some viewing time?

This is a sloppy movie, too.  Where does a murder victim hide her diary?  In a cheap box labeled "My Diary."  How many stab wounds does it take to kill a person?  Just one, and they're all immediately fatal.  The killer spends a lot of time naked on-screen, so there are an awful lot of crotch-level props shown.  Grown women sharing an apartment share one bedroom with one closet and two double beds?  In what reality is this movie taking place?  Oh, and the title has absolutely nothing to do with the story at all.  What happens at 11:50 PM?  I have no idea.  I'm not saying that fixing these details would fix this movie, but it would help disguise the awfulness of it.

10 to Midnight starts out as a fairly conventional detective story that could have been half-decent.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda, I know.  Dabbling in the slasher and vigilante cop genres just muddled the story in a movie that should have been very straight forward.  The ending is what drops this from "bad movie" to "utter crap," though.  Is there a message in the ending?  Is Kessler to be admired for his actions, or condemned?  I don't really care, because the characters were unappealing, but I honestly don't know what the point of this movie was.