Skip to main content

Quickie Review - John Carpenter's The Thing

It's been 30 years since I first and last saw this movie. As a young teen, I remember finding this movie incredibly funny. Not the intended dark comedy, but the violence and gore.  it was so fake, I laughed non-stop. My memories told me the movie was good, but far less deserving of the cult status it has achieved.  So tonight, I have it another shot.

Much like other John Carpenter films, character depth is nonexistent.  I must admit, I had forgot how similar it was to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Both movies build tension through the process of letting us know the affliction, but not the afflicted. The problem with the Thing is, we're never tricked until the end, which is ambiguous if you miss one small wrinkle, even though they actually screw that up slightly.

So here's the deal. Horror needs to be fun. This movie is fun. It needs to build tension. It builds it initially, but falters towards the end.  It needs moments of levity, which this has acted, but one amazing one.  It also needs closure or a possibility for a sequel. This has neither. One could argue for either, but look at the film closely and it's not possible.  So what are my feelings after 30 years? About the same if i had to rate it, but more appreciation for the tension and the intentional humor, but less for the character development.  In the end a good film, but not nearly the classic it gets credit for.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

11 Rules of Life - Bill Gates?

I read this on Facebook this morning.  A friend had posted it and said that every child should have to receive this. I of course read it and started to think.  I immediately wondered who really wrote this, as I rarely see things like this attributed to the proper person.  I immediately found it was written by Conservative Charles J. Sykes when he wrote a book about how America is dumbing down our youth.  I read it twice and started to wonder how true it was.  Below is a link to the actual picture I saw. So let's look at each of the rules and analyze them. Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it! - Life is not fair in that we are not all afforded the same opportunities based on race, creed, color, socio-economic background, but in general, those who are afforded the same opportunities to succeed are very often rewarded for their individual efforts.  Sure there may be underlying circumstances, but hard work is proven to pay more often than not and those who strive for succ

White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her