After forty years, fans are finally getting what they want; a sequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing From Another World (1982). After much campaigning on the streets of Hollywood, the $200 million dollar sequel is hoping to kickstart a franchise and its own ten part miniseries on HBO. What can the fans of this video nasty expect when this film finally hits our theatres?
It just so happens I was invited to an early screening, where I got to sit with John Carpenter and Kurt Russel along with a bottle of scotch and a bowl of cashews. The two Hollywood bigwigs are good company, and you can tell these assholes have known each other for the last fifty years. They share anecdotes about the films they’ve made, but I couldn’t quite remember what they were saying as I was watching TikToks on my phone, but when they had quietened down I snapped my fingers to the projectionist. As the opening credits role, Carpenter explains to me there has been zero money spent on digital effects, with almost all of the two hundred million dollars going to practical effects specialists across the country. I shush him as the film begins. The Things appears in the classic reversed bath with ink opening as the first.
The film is a masterpiece, surpassing every other work by both Carpenter and Russel, putting it amongst the canon of great works of cinema in the 21st century. I feel this film is going to hit a billion views in year one. Year two, maybe the whole population of Earth will have seen it. I experienced the whole range of human emotions, whilst also being stunned at the creative and philosophical connections the film made. This is not just cinema at its finest – it is one of the great works of art ever created.
The film begins with Kurt Russel playing golf on a rooftop somewhere in Manhattan. Reprising his role as MacReady from the first film, Russel brings a weathered and meditative performance that is reminiscent of large antique furniture your grandparents owned and is now dominating your rented flat as nobody else wanted it. We watch golf balls punt through the windows of the apartment buildings opposite. He sets down another ball, swings, misses, kicks it off the rooftop. We follow the golfball down onto the city street, it bounces a few times and rolls against a car. Beneath the car there is a creature.
I won’t spoil the rest of the film, but basically The Thing has arrived in New York and most of the city has become mutating aliens. The film has swapped the metaphors for AIDS from the first film to Covid-19 in the second, but that’s not all. We’re also taking a cunning look at issues around identity, politics, bodily autonomy and MAGA, but also the beauty of the human spirit within the context of suffering. The film is rife with wonderous allegories, all of it interspersed with mindblowing special effects. Seeing hundreds of people mutate, merge, divide in glorious animatronics and buckets of slime leaves the viewer feeling light-headed and uncomfortable. Unlike the first film, there is an incredibly sexual element to the mutating alien that gives the movie its title. Lets just say there are scenes I can’t imagine would get past the censors. Instead they are burned into my memory, occupying my sleepless hours before I wake.
Overall I give this movie an 8/10. Afterwards Carpenter and Russel wanted me to join them at a local bar, but it was almost late and my social battery was running low.
“Sorry guys, maybe next time.”
“C’mon man, we actually think you’re really cool and wondered if you had any film ideas you’d like to pitch us.” said Kurt Russel.
“Yeah, and you don’t need to worry about paying. Tonight’s on me.” said Carpenter, flashing a wad of credit cards. I yawned.
“I have some meat at home that’s going to go out of date. I mean, it’s already out of date, I need to eat it tonight.” I explained. They both understood. With that we parted ways, but I had secretly filmed most of the film on my phone and watched it again that evening. This is one hell of an 8/10 movie, and I hope you get to watch it someday.
