Most of you are probably aware of John Carpenter's The Thing, but haven’t encountered the original, if you were aware of it. As a kid I watched it and found it quite a good story, after rewatching it I realize that like most things from the 50’s, it’s quite childish by today’s standards. In contrast to John Carpenter’s masterpiece, the alien in this film seems almost harmless by today’s horror/sci-fi standards. If you blink you’ll miss any violence, and even minor characters survive the film to the cheerful, but supposedly chilling ending. The alien is the standard fifties fare, a tall guy in a suit, probably wearing some makeup. Marshall Matt Dillon, actually, if anyone remembers Gunsmoke.

Like I said, the aliens really only deadly in theory, compared to the paranoia-drenched massacre in the modern movie, this is quite the letdown. The alien is kind of a living plant, and as the movie goes on, I realized he was a daisy. A harmless daisy, swaying in the icy wind.

In a brutally stupid scene, the scientist makes the argument that they all owed it to humanity to let the alien kill them, because humanity needed to meet the alien and learn from it. Ok, so it’s theoretically going to take over or kill the world (if it ever gets violent), but first it’s going to teach us all kinds of wonderful things? Fucking stupid. In the 50’s they really hated scientists, so they were always dipshits in movies, and lets face it, as a stupid society (Americans) we love when the “Working Joe” makes better decisions than the uber-educated geek.

If you have small children, movies like this might be a good start on the road to horror, introducing the horror concepts without any actual scary. I leave you with the parting words, “Watch the skies…”

2.5 out of 10 cowboy veggies

(1951) Christian Nyby, John W. Campbell Jr, Charles Lederer

Margaret Sheridan .... Nikki
Kenneth Tobey .... Captain Patrick Hendry
Robert Cornthwaite .... Dr. Carrington
Douglas Spencer .... Scotty
James R. Young .... Lt. Eddie Dykes (as James Young)
Dewey Martin .... Crew Chief
Robert Nichols .... Lt. Ken Erickson
William Self .... Corporal Barnes
Eduard Franz .... Dr. Stern
Sally Creighton .... Mrs. Chapman
James Arness .... The Thing

Also known as: The Thing