A while back we ran a competition to come up with an idea for an article for your favourite blog. Our old contributor Lee Medcalf went one stage further and wrote us an entire article.
So, without further ado, we'll leave Lee to referee the ultimate smack down between a classic slice of scifi and its remake. Who will triumph? A walking space carrot or a viral Hieronymus Bosch painting? Hit the jump to find out:
Original - The Thing from Another World
Plot:
Isolated and alone in Antarctica, a team of scientists and army officers uncover and thaw out a blood-thirsty alien in the ice.
What's good about it?
What's not so good?
Classic?
What's good about it?
What's not so good?
Classic?
Winner
Isolated and alone in Antarctica, a team of scientists and army officers uncover and thaw out a blood-thirsty alien in the ice.
What's good about it?
Lots, while the attitude of the film is very fifties - full of Cold-War paranoia, square-jawed heroes and simpering women there purely to get into peril or act as a love interest - The Thing from Another World, scripted by the original short story author John Campbell, is a master class in claustrophobic fear and one that clearly helped inspire a whole subgenre of trapped heroes in an isolated environment movies, such as Alien, The Shining and many more.
What's not so good?
The script, for all-of-its expert manipulation of atmosphere, is typically-cheesy 50s B-movie shlock. The revelation that the creature is, to all intents and purposes, a human-shaped carrot also causes unintentional titters in the audience.
Classic?
Plot:
Isolated and alone in Antarctica, a team of scientists uncover and thaw out a shape-changing alien that can assume the identity of anyone it kills.
What's good about it?
Everything, from pitch-perfect performances portraying a weary and realistic motley crew of scientists, Carpenter's intense direction, Ennio Morricone's ominous score and some truly jaw-dropping effects from an effects team that included a young Stan Winston, The Thing is truly a white-knuckle. apocalyptic thrill ride.
What's not so good?
Nothing that comes to mind… unless you hate gore, in which case, why are you reading this!?
Classic?
Most definitely
Conclusion:
The Thing From Another World, is definitely a good movie, a prime slice of 50s B-Movie history and a great bit of Cold-War SF fun, but, while it has a lot to recommend it - if only from a movie buffs perspective - it simply can’t compare with the visceral thrill and intense claustrophobia of Carpenter's remake. The more paired-down crew and the MO of the creature itself add an extra level to Campbell's tale of paranoia and fear, especially when combined with 80s nihilism, which especially shows itself in the extremely-downbeat finale. While it is unfair to compare the visual effects of two films separated by thirty years, you simply cannot ignore the superlative animatronic work, a Hieronymus Bosch-like nightmare of teeth, limbs and exotic appendages, that keeps the audience pinned to their seats (or “spending the winter tied to this f@!$ing chair” as Donald Moffat might say) and keeps both the characters and the viewer unsure as to exactly what the creature is going to look like next. Something that a dome-headed James Arness in a boiler suit simply cannot compete with.
Winner
The Thing, no question.
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