OBEDIENCE TRAINING GONE WRONG
It was the summer of 2004. As burgeoning horror fans, my brother and I used our freedom from school and responsibility to digest as much genre cinema as we possibly could. At the time, I was becoming more and more obsessed with practical effects and the 80s aesthetic, which is one of the many reasons why my brother kept insisting that I check out The Thing (1981)
A newcomer to the film himself, my brother had only just received the DVD as a birthday gift from a friend of his. They had become obsessed with the movie after playing the XBOX game based on the film. Never let it be said that XBOX games based on movies didn’t do at least some good in this world. In the end, it didn’t take much asking, once I heard his description of the movie, I was in.
With only Halloween (1978) under my belt to gauge the director by, John Carpenter’s vision floored me on several levels when I finally saw it. While a character driven narrative lies at the center of the film, it is made all the more powerful by the fast paced action and mind-bending practical effects that populate its runtime.
I had never seen anything like it; hell, I could hardly believe it.
That’s the thing about seeing something so impactful, so revolutionary, it defies belief. Film is a visual medium. Yes, it draws on its viewer’s imagination to help bring the reality presented onscreen to life, but, ultimately, it has the ability to show you something. This element can be a blessing and a curse depending on the production, the talent behind the work and the sticking power of the narrative to whom the film is being presented.
The suspension of disbelief is made possible by these images, certainly, but the process would fall apart completely without the story to back it up and characters who act in such a manner that they lend themselves to reality and, moreover, present a persona one can care about or invest in. In a horror film, especially one that’s reliant on practical effects, so too is it important that the words which act as a catalyst to the finished product conjure image, tone and situational dread in a way that’s as moving and engrossing as the aforementioned characters.
Over the years, as I’m sure all horror fans do, I thought more and more about The Thing. I watched it more times than I can count. Still, I never forgot that feeling of utter shock when the film had ended. It was a feeling overcome by dread and yet an intoxicating one: I had never seen a world like I saw in The Thing. I had never truly believed practical effects like I believed them here.
I sought out the screenplay in an effort to understand what it was that Bill Lancaster wrote which led to the effects presented in the film. Words that could inspire such imagery, such art, had to be special. More than that, they would have to inform beyond what was obvious
they would have to incite mood as much as story.
But sometimes it’s not only the method by which the filmmaker brings the words to life but the manner in which they interpret the events on the page visually that can be the most eye opening. The job and role of the screenplay can vary dramatically from film to film, from filmmaker to filmmaker and it isn’t always represented word for word on celluloid.
One scene in particular, the incident in the dog kennel, serves as the perfect reflection of this dichotomy. In a series of pages written in the sort of straight talk you might expect Kurt Russell’s character to spout off, Bill Lancaster expertly weaves the intense action of the scene but does so with a sense of sparsity that Carpenter opted to deviate from in places and embolden in others. The result would change horror cinema forever.
THE SCENE
A dog is brought into the holding kennel. It sits quietly as the other dogs observe it, sensing that something is off. Suddenly the strange animal begins to transform, its skin peeling back and tentacles spouting from its form. The commotion attracts the crew. Several dogs escape, while more are assimilated into the beast. MacReady and his men open fire, but the creature continues to grow and evolve. Finally, Childs arrives with a flame thrower and dispatches the monstrosity as the men hurry to snuff out the flames in the kennel.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
The scene begins in a manner that mirrors the screenplay: “most of the dogs are sleeping or lounging. The new dog watches them calmly, silently.”
The words here depict several complex interactions between the dogs, calling for a building progression of worry and intimidation between the new dog and those that were there before. The script calls for the dogs to appear “Bewildered” and speaks somewhat poetically about the sensibilities of the animals:
“As if sensing something: a portent. A danger. But so odd.”
The film, perhaps out of necessity, forgoes much of the nuance represented in the text. While many of the descriptions present resonate with what appears on-screen (i.e. the new dog “sitting rigidly, unnaturally still”), the sequence plays out much faster in the film. Beyond the expedience of Carpenter’s style is the difference between what is only alluded to in the screenplay and what is present onscreen in the film. The only description of the creature on the page is the separated, emboldened text:
THE SHADOW OF THE NEW DOG
The script would prefer to leave the horror up to the imagination of the viewer. Carpenter takes the conceit as an opportunity to put the visual effects on full display and provide a pathway for viewers to enter the reality of the film. Instead of “A SHADOW”, the camera holds on a close up as the animal’s skin on its face peels back, inward as if it were a budding flower in reverse. The tongue remains grotesque and protruding while quivering tentacles emerge about the creature’s form. Strange, otherworldly buzzing issues from the thing and it sprouts long, insect-like legs.
The script says, “The shadow suddenly lurches upward, seeming larger,” before a space and then: “The kennel roars”.
Rather than attacking, roaring or otherwise, the remaining dogs in the kennel are shown either attempting to escape or being doused with some sort of spray from the new, evolving creature sharing their space. Instead of ferociousness, the animals show fear- transforming the scene into something more audacious and disturbing.
The next few sections of the script were omitted from the film, streamlining the story, presumably so as not to spend too much time away from the core action. Instead of showing the men bothered by the noise and sending Clark to investigate, Clark is still in the kennel from before and present for the commotion. Ultimately dispelling the distracting plot based cut aways serves to strengthen the emotional impact of the sequence and better maintains the viewer’s focus.
The script calls for a “savage outpouring of noise” from the kennel. In contrast, the film presents Clark with a dark, silent kennel; a mystifyingly deadened version of what the character clearly expected to find. Still, the scene follows through with the text when after a moment Clark is struck by two desperate dogs “as if jettisoned from a cannon.” The force deriving from quiet darkness as opposed to bombastic chaos affects a strong sense of shock and continues the ever mounting feeling of dread and the unknown through which the film trades.
The following scenes play out as written, fairly straightforward. Of course, some of the dialogue shifts, lines alter slightly here and there, but, by and large the script conveys the sense of dramatic confusion by which the group of men are now infected.
“Chaos. Men, half-naked, bounce from their cubicle.”
Once the men reach the kennel, the film again deviates from the action of the screenplay. The text describes what’s happening in the kennel with phrases like “the fight inside rages on” and “Total confusion: the dogs; the men; the screeching; the blackness.” Again, there is a sense of overwhelming chaos, an impression of visual cacophony. Instead, the creature is put on full display.
The initial introduction of the men to the thing is quiet and disturbingly contemplative. The writhing creature is something to behold and that emotion is reflected in the eyes and expressions of MacReady and his crew. The screenplay calls for “Dogs being hurled about” and “a wild melee” but none of this is present in the film.
Instead, Carpenter seems to elevate the line: “The flashlight illuminates parts of some ‘thing.’ A dog.” There’s a break and then: “But not quite. Impossible to tell.”
The screenplay brilliantly challenges the reader to accept that what they’re seeing is something new, something inexplicable and, by all accounts, unnatural.
The thought conjures eerie imagery, confounding in its mysteriousness and terrifying in its lack of emotional motivation.
What follows is fairly streamlined when compared to the script. Upon realizing that the creature is assimilating the dogs, MacReady fires his shotgun, prompting Clark to throw himself forward in protection of his animals. They close the kennel as Childs approaches with the flame thrower. In the script, this sequence is marred with dogs being flung at MacReady and more gunplay. Carpenter again opts to showcase the dichotomy between the futility of the men and the overwhelming capacity the monster has to change as well as the power that change represents.
A mass of muscle that embodies the idea of formlessness grows upward toward the ceiling. As the thing in the kennel metamorphoses, a single eye emerges and becomes visible against its mass. The script mentions nothing of the creature’s look or this eye, however the inclusion provides an eerie sense of awareness. The eye is in some ways human, or at the very least understandable as such; a way to see and interpret. More specifically, It can see the men, but, in many ways, the men can not truly see it.
The scene in the screenplay and in the film culminate in a similar fashion, but with one unique difference that seems to be a common theme throughout the changes already encountered: loudness. In the script, Childs assaults the creature amongst much tumult, as evidenced by lines such as “Childs lets loose with a burst of blue flame. A mewing, a screeching.” This continues with descriptions like “his assault on the hissing, gurgling presence” and “Dogs and men choke and cough amidst the smoke and CO2.” The physical assault is entrenched in audible offenses that evoke discord. Even the action of the scene is written with more of a sense of movement and dynamism: “Men charge into the room and begin spraying dogs and burning walls.”
In the film, once Childs lets loose on the creature, the sounds seems to die away instantly, leaving only the crackling of flames and the hissing torch. Certainly men follow after him to extinguish the walls, but gone is the sense and sound of battle, presenting the audience with a quandary that will haunt the characters throughout the remainder of the film:
What is that thing capable of?
In lieu of a grandiose moment of action, Carpenter leaves the characters in a state of quiet contemplation. In the end, this encourages reflection on the horror that had graced the screen as opposed to satisfaction that the characters were momentarily victorious over it.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“We did a little bit of everything,” Dean Cundey recalled, speaking on the commentary track found on Scream Factory’s recent blu-ray release of The Thing. He goes on to say that in a movie like The Thing, what’s important is “always keep the audience guessing about how you do it.”
Some art is timeless.
My brother and I were not prepared to see the unfathomable in the summer of 2004, much in the way I assume audiences were unprepared to see it in 1982. Forever worthy of being in the conversation or, perhaps, adapted into an XBOX game. The scene in the kennel hinges on its audience’s suspension of disbelief and to accomplish such a thing, given the fantastic nature of the content, is no small feat. As I said, timeless.
| The role of the screenplay is varied and ever changing. Bringing the words to life in a film is not always as easy as shooting the text exactly as it appears. John Carpenter’s THE THING is a fantastic showcase for this unique brand of evolution, taking the seed of something terrifying and iconic and metamorphosing it, much like the film’s titular terror, into something equally so but with a sense of moody style and unequivocal mounting dread. |
I remember thinking, just as the credits started to play, that the feeling I had at the end of The Thing was why I loved being a horror fan. At the time, I couldn’t provide an exact explanation as to why. Years later, I can confidently say that the feeling is one of utter awe. An inexplicable acceptance of the fantastical, the otherworldly and, indeed, the unflinching spirit of mankind’s drive.
John Carpenter and Bill Lancaster each had a vision. Together, with the masterful effects work of Rob Bottin and, in this particular sequence, the great Stan Winston, that vision molded into The Thing. Two perspectives that when combined, created something beyond anything I could have ever imagined. And even though I’ve watched it so many times, discussed it with so many people and dissected it in so many different contexts, I will never watch it with anything but unmitigated awe.
At the end of the scene in a second commentary found on the aforementioned blu-ray disc, John Carpenter remarks, “The audience and the characters have discovered that, in fact, we’re in deep trouble here.”
There’s a sense of whimsy and intrigue in his voice. A hint of, perhaps, a suspension of the sort of logic that makes the unreal seem just so. As he speaks, the next scene begins and MacReady, looking lost, quietly contemplates his next move. After all, he’s just seen the impossible and now he has to deal with it.
I think everyone who has ever seen The Thing can relate to that.
The Thing (1982): Written by Bill Lancaster and Directed by John Carpenter
.){kind=link}