The Thing From Another World

It may be asking too much to expect horror and scifi movies to be scary fifty-plus years later, so I think the real litmus test for the longevity of films in those genres is whether or not they can still show audiences a good time. (Yes, there are exceptions: some horror films from the 1930s and 40s have a striking atmosphere that remains creepy even if the movies themselves are dated.) The Thing From Another World (1951) is a prime example. It's a totally fun movie about an Arctic outfit that discovers an alien man frozen in the ice. Of course, they cut him out with axes and bring him back to their quarters so that he can thaw out and wreak havoc. The material comes from a novel called Who Goes There? by John Campbell, and it was adapted for the screen by Charles Lederer (although Ben Hecht and producer Howard Hawks apparently worked on the script as well).

The original The Thing is still a superior version of this story because it is what it is: just a fun popcorn movie that draws in enough real anxiety (the fear of monsters both at home and abroad is always in the atmosphere of this movie) and enough humor to balance that anxiety. It's probably the most compact, smart, and fun example of the alien invasion movies of its time period (alongside Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Plus, it has that wonderful Howard Hawks-ish banter between the characters. (He purportedly directed much of the film, although Christian Nyby was officially behind the directorial reins.) They're played by a remarkably game cast of B-movie actors, including Kenneth Tobey as the military captain called upon to enlist the scientists, Margaret Sheridan as the sexy, intelligent secretary, Robert Cornthwaite as the scientist who sees their discovery as a monumental moment in human history, and Douglas Spencer as the wiry, acerbic, but good-natured newspaperman who's desperate for a story.

There's something so delightful about the way The Thing doesn't try and put the screws on its audience. The actors never take themselves or the material too seriously, and the production team makes good use of that old technique of not revealing your monster too soon. Sure he looks a bit hokey now, but James Arness's tall, shambling monstrosity is strangely impressive and foreboding and even tragic, much like Frankenstein's monster. (I have to think that the make-up effects people had that character in mind when designing him.) This is a movie that just wants us to have fun. It puts me in such a good mood when movies want this.

It's interesting to see how many later horror films borrowed from The Thing. George Romero certainly had it in mind when he was working out Night of the Living Dead (right down to boarding up the doors to keep the shambling zombies out of the farmhouse), and John Carpenter went so far as to have The Thing playing throughout Halloween: it's the movie the kids are watching while the knife-wielding maniac dispatches the clueless teenagers. And of course, Carpenter himself reworked the material into the overrated 1982 remake, which has so much disgusting gore and so little humor that you wonder why on earth people seem to prefer it. It's definitely more intense, and it has the always fun to watch Kurt Russell, but for me there's no besting the first one (in this case).

With James Young, Dewey Martin, Robert Nichols, and William Self.

The Howling

One of three werewolf movies to come out in 1981, The Howling has all the visual qualities of a vividly remembered nightmare, but it never lets horror get in the way of its canny sense of humor. It has all the makings of a good late-night horror flick--replete with scenes of ghastly werewolf transformations that are still pretty impressive. Like An American Werewolf in London, which came out the same year, the physical special effects leave a brazen impression much more so than computer-generated effects. Half the fun comes in watching how the filmmakers manage to manipulate the scene to convince us we're watching a human undergo a horrifying mutation.

However, as clever-looking as the movie is, and as amusing and pulpy as it tries to be, it never builds up to a strong finish. Its attempt to critique the sensationalism of television journalism is unfocused because it's trying its level best to be a werewolf movie at the same time.
And moreover, The Howling is never as exciting or thrilling as you'd like it to be. There's a great deal of "atmosphere," but something about it feels artificial, and in the end you feel like you're trekking into the territory of a filmmaker who isn't all that attuned to how to make a horror movie tick. The film's sense of humor is obvious and at the same time very niche, so only devoted horror movie fans are likely to get all the genre references (half the characters' names pay homage to 1950s horror film directors).

Dee Wallace (E.T.) heads the cast as Karen White, an L.A. reporter who witnesses a traumatic encounter with a serial killer, and heads to a secluded therapy retreat with her husband Bill (Christopher Stone) to try and recover. Of course--and we saw this coming--the place is overrun with werewolves. (We've seen this before: they were witches in Rosemary's Baby and robots in The Stepford Wives, etc.). Dee Wallace is an interesting case: she's worked most memorably in the horror and scifi genres, usually playing somebody's mother (as in E.T. and Cujo). But she isn't being used to her full potential in this movie. Director Joe Dante doesn't let her fall back on her natural comic abilities as much as other directors have, and he seems determined to present her as a drag, and the least interesting woman in the film. The bewitching werewolf queen Elisabeth Brooks seduces her husband, presumably because he's tired of her being a drag. And her newsroom pal, played by Belinda Balaski, is far more energetic and loose in front of a camera. Of course, Wallace's character is overcoming the traumatic experience of encountering a serial killer/stalker/sexual predator at a dirty movie theater, so she's understandably rattled. But this was an unappealing characterological move, especially for an actress like Dee Wallace, who's normally plucky and fun to watch: instead of making her strong, she's a blank canvass. Sigourney Weaver raised our expectations for what a woman could do in a horror movie situation, and Wallace's character is sort of channeling Mary Richards, the newsroom gal from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Weaver would have kicked werewolf ass, severely, and even Mary Richards would have been smart enough to get the hell out of there sooner. Dante keeps a tight reign on this woman in order to keep his movie on his track. Everything happens to Karen White. She is a totally reactionary heroine. Her character never develops or grows, and the result is a stilted performance from an actress who's capable of much more than that.

Written by John Sayles and Terence Winkless, from the 1977 novel by Gary Brandner. With Patrick Macnee as the fatherly psychiatrist who heads the retreat known as "The Colony," Dennis Dugan, and Robert Picardo.