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Normally this site is flooded with discussion and arguments about any horror film from 1980-2012...but it seems a rarity when we return to the Silver age of cinema to investigate one of this planet's classic horror masterpieces. Hopefully, I can remedy this by bringing up some of the great horror movies of all time and raising some kind of discussion. Today I'll start wit one of the great inspirational films of horror cinema, The Thing From Another World by the legendary cinema genius Howard Hawks.
I'll try and save most of my Hawks gushing for some other thread, but let it be known that this man is one of the best of all time, and every director from Hitchcock, Spielberg, to Tarantino owes their career to this early master. Though this was his only true horror flick it still displays his mastery of lighting and atmosphere that the folks of color film making couldn't hope to come close to.
Anyway, the movie starts out like any other 50's horror film in that an unexplained phenomena has occured in an isolated part of the world and a rag-tag team of military men, scientists, and at least one reporter must go investigate it. For such an early entry in the genre it seems to have perfected it and few have improved on it since. Other films (Gamera, The Deadly Mantis, even some of the Godzilla franchise) try to re-create the ice bound menace that is released by man to terrorize him, but none seems to match the tone or danger imposed by this close quarters film.
After we are introduced to the cast of characters, we are immediately brought into the situation at hand where an alien space ship has been found around the North Pole and our team needs to figure out how to get it out and where it came from. One thing leads to another and before we know it an alien creature in a frozen block of ice is being brought back to the nearby base for analysis. Cue the predictable storm that knocks out communications (the 50's equivalent of not having cell phone reception in modern horror movies) and we have a narrow, confined attempt to survive the onslaught of an alien menace.
While of course, this film from the 50's isn't up to our usual 10's (yes folks we are all so old that our current decade is the 10's) gore level, but for its time it presents things nearly unheard of for its time including deaths and even a severed arm! The special effects are the normal 50's tricks used including make up and low grade physical trickery. The real terror in this classic emanates from the director's masterful use of claustrophobic interiors. Complete isolation is what keeps the viewer in their seats. Of course, Carpenter knew this in his amazing re-make and replicated it to his best efforts, but IMO the movie to best capture this "man against beast in an isolated space" sense of dread is Spielberg's Jaws.
The one gripe that you could bring up for this film is that it is most certainly a product of its times. Meaning that the movie adheres to many late 40s/early 50s film conventions including the polarizing topic of continuous dialog. Some find it a charming throwback of the times, others a distracting way of speaking that no humans have ever performed naturally. I tend to waver on either side of the discussion but I do recognize that it takes the viewer out of the submersion of the film and makes it easily recognizable that you are watching and old movie. The whole black and white thing has never bothered me and to tell the truth I almost never even notice it when I watch a movie (if it's good enough).
In conclusion movies such as this need to be watched by our modern day horror fans to appreciate where our beloved genre comes from, sure it may not have the gore or jump scares that the latest Saw may offer, but to truly appreciate where the modern day film makers get their inspiration from to craft some of our favorite modern and classic movies like Jaws, Alien, The Mist, Splinter, and of course The Thing (1982) we need to watch and discuss theses early pioneering films
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