The Thing From Another World: A Cultural Review

This was an extremely well written film, in regards to the suspense sections at least. It would have been, perhaps, one of the most superbly written films in the genre at the time, except for one hindering quality. It focuses too much on the propagandic elements of the movie. If the writer had spent half as much time devoted to suspenseful moments, instead of subtle insinuations towards the Soviets, it would have made a much better film.
The story begins when the crew of an Antarctic air force base discovers a mysterious crash site near the base. Investigating the site they discover a circular object underneath the ice. In typical militaristic fashion, they try and uncover it with explosives. Essentially destroying the discovered craft, they do, however, manage to safely uncover some sort of living creature frozen in the ice. Bringing it back to the base, they attempt to contact an authority figure on the matter, but, naturally, a storm sets in, effectively closing them off from the rest of the world. The commanding officer, Pat, decides to keep the thing frozen until base command can be reached, much to the distress of the lead scientist on base, Dr. Carrington. Unfortunately, the young officer charged with watching the creature covers the block of ice with a blanket, in actuality an electric blanket. The thing, of course, escapes and proves invulnerable to the man’s bullets.
After the rest of the base is alerted, they run to watch the thing fighting off the bases’ sled dogs. The thing kills them and escapes, but not without leaving behind an arm for the group of scientists to properly examine. The plot thickens as Dr. Carrington discovers that the creature is actually plant based rather than animal based, constantly interrupting himself with various announcements of what he could discover from such an advanced life form. The rest of the base seem unconvinced however, and plot to destroy the creature. They then begin searching the base to no avail. Dr. Carrington however discovers evidence of the thing in the greenhouse and decides to wait for its return, hoping to learn from it. This naturally leads to disaster and the death of a couple of the base crew. They finally capture the thing back inside the greenhouse, but begin to prepare for another assault, realizing that the thing will not be held for long.
The action escalates with Pat’s discovery that Dr. Carrington is actually growing some of the creatures inside his laboratory. He does not have long to be mad, however, due to the fact that the thing has managed to cut the fuel lines, plunging the base in to sub zero temperatures. The crew confronts the thing again, this time slightly more prepared and actually manage to fend it off, nearly burning it death by lighting on fire using kerosene. Running along the same train of thought, the crew decides to try and burn it to death again, this time using electricity. Setting up a high voltage walkway, in hopes of trapping the creature in a high powered arc of electricity, the crew begins to wait.
The creature finally appears and the crew begins to back down the hallway, successfully tricking the thing onto the booby trapped walk way. Dr. Carrington enters the scene attempting to rescue the creature, only to have the thing nearly shatter his neck. The thing falls right into the well hidden trap, and without a moment’s hesitation Pat triggers it, and it slowly shrivels into a lifeless husk. The movie then ends with a report to civilization from a reporter on the scene, ending the movie with one last not so subtle line regarding the “imminent” Soviet invasion.
The directing is probably this movie’s saving grace. While most of it is rather mediocre, there are some definite highlights; the way that the crew actually finds the shape of the thing’s ship is probably one of the best. I have to admit that that was pretty good. The suspense scenes probably make up most of the others. They really do get your heart pumping for brief stints of time. Besides that though, once you add in some off the rather unfortunate discrepancies, such as the unrealistic base props and the excessive amount of sub characters, the end result is mediocrity.
The acting also leaves a lot to be desired, while a step up from a true B film, the movie still does not take advantage of good actors. The three leads, Pat, his girlfriend, and Dr. Carrington are all ok actors, but the lack of true believability does not do the film any real favors. Not only that, but the mass of support characters really seems to take them all down a notch into the relative state of extra-hood. The writing, on the other hand, truly is pretty good.
The dialogue is excellent, and I did not notice anything particular gregarious in the plot, but nothing spectacular either. Like I mentioned earlier though, the constant attempts at subliminal messaging the vileness of the Soviet nation, truly does harm to the writers ability. He should not have let that become such a major focus of the film, but I suppose it kept the McCarthy fanatics off his back. Another example of how ridiculous fanaticism only harms a culture’s ultimate progression.
As I mentioned previously, the references to communism is really blatant. The first evidence of this is, of course the whole invasion by an alien species. But, realistically that could be the premise for any number of movies. The first truly blatant reference is when Dr. Carrington discovers the truth regarding the thing’s classification. Speaking of how completely mindless and how lacking in emotions the thing is, but, how it still has an astounding ability to advance in scientific discoveries. One of the second references is once again told through Dr. Carrington when he speaks of “how the only way to beat this thing is through science”, a clear allusion to the race again the Soviets in scientific discoveries.
Other themes throughout the film include the constant threat of being complete overrun by this life seeking, furiously replicating thing, once again making reference to the suppose imminent invasion from Russia. Another one is the fact that in nearly every confrontation but the last, the crew underestimates the thing’s ability, in reference to the government’s warning to never underestimate the Soviet’s ability. Finally, the movie actually comes to a close with one last thinly veiled reference to the Soviets. This is delivered by the news reporter on base telling the people of America to constantly “watch the skies”, as if America needed to expand on its paranoia any further.
All in all the film was worth watching, once at least. It is unfortunate that the writer had to so heavily taint his material with propaganda as to suffocate the film so. Truly a tragedy, for it had such promise. The 1980 remake took an entirely different route, a better one, in my opinion, but lacking the original’s stellar writing. In the end, The Thing from another World is a remarkably forgettable film.