Review of The Thing from Another World (1951) by Jeremy K — 19 Feb 2014

Based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?", "The Thing from Another World" is about an Air Force crew that is dispatched to the North Pole, where they discover a flying saucer buried beneath a field of ice; they accidentally destroy the ship, but discover a large figure buried in another block of ice. They return it to their outpost, but that turns out to be a big mistake, as the creature gets loose and goes on a rampage. The crew wants to destroy it, but Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert O. Cornthwaite) wants to capture and study it.

Believe it or not, one of the best things about this movie is actually the dialogue. The characters' conversations overlap each other at times, so it sounds like they're really talking. When they don't overlap, the conversations are well-written and actually funny at times. This was a trademark for filmmaker Howard Hawks, who some say actually directed this movie. There have been conflicting reports as to whether Hawks or Christian Nyby directed the majority of the film. Anyway, Hawks had helmed famous comedic projects such as "Bringing Up Baby" and "His Girl Friday." You probably wouldn't expect a good translation into a horror movie, but the comedic dialogue still sounds natural and effectively offsets the serious stuff going on.

As for the characters, I actually like them as well. Kenneth Tobey is believable as Captain Patrick Hendry, Margaret Sheridan has much more character as love interest Nikki than female characters of the time period, and I think Douglas Spencer is very good as reporter Ned "Scotty" Scott. He's someone who does whatever he can to get a story, but doesn't step on any toes and has a good attitude the entire time. Hell, even Dr. Carrington is a believable character in this. I usually get so annoyed with the whole military vs. scientist conflict in movies like this, most specifically with George Romero's "Day of the Dead." But I think it works in this movie because you understand how he feels about it; we as humans are always looking for new discoveries, so this is clearly one of mankind's greatest opportunities of discovery. And while he does put everyone's lives at risk, he's putting his own life at risk as well, he isn't just being a coward like other characters in these types of movies; he sees this discovery as more important than mankind itself.

As for the Thing itself, it's apparently a much different design than the novella; Scotty describes it as an "intellectual carrot." Specifically, its body is made of vegetable, so it can regrow dismembered limbs; however, it needs blood to survive. And regular bullets can't harm it, so the crew has to keep searching through methods that can destroy it. It looks really good and menacing, and the scenes with it are great.

Part of the reason is the suspense, actually. They have a Geiger counter that picks up whenever the Thing is close by. As it gets closer and closer, they fortify themselves and are forced to just wait until they finally see it. These scenes are built up quite well. And when the creature sabotages a heating fuel line, the temperature starts dropping, so they're working against the clock until either the Thing or the elements defeat them.

"The Thing from Another World" is one of those strange cases where there isn't really anything wrong with it, but I can't call it perfect. I usually want something really extraordinary in my movies in order to make them really good. The only thing I can measure extraordinary is the opening title sequence, where the title slowly burns its way into the picture; that's an awesome sequence. Everything else range from decent to very good. Of course, if I had to nitpick, it would be the scene where the Thing actually thaws out that's a real problem. One of the guys has clearly already told the Captain that it looks possibly alive in the ice, and then they put an electric blanket on top of it...which thaws it out faster! Wow, that was dumb. There's maybe a little too much explaining going on, a little too much time spent on everyone trying to find more about the Thing rather than actually doing something.

But I still think this movie is a strong piece of sci-fi. The nitpicks I mentioned are mostly minor, save for the electric blanket scene perhaps. It has a creepy atmosphere, solid acting and one of the most chilling final lines of dialogue in any movie, spoken by Scottie through a radio. For a genre that doesn't always thrill me, this film certainly does the job.