THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

 

(Director: Christian Nyby and an uncredited co-screenwriter Howard Hawks. Co-screenwriter: Charles Lederer.)

Plot: An American Air Force crew and scientists discover an alien space craft and a frozen-solid alien in the Arctic. They bring the supposed corpse back to their nearby outpost, where the Thing─later described as a deadly “super carrot”─thaws, awakens, stalks and begins feeding on the outpost inhabitants and its dogs.

 

Review

Based on John W. Campbell Jr.’s 1948 story “Who Goes There?” (a rework of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1936 novella At the Mountains of Madness), THING is an influential, waste-no-time science fiction horror film that makes simple-but-excellent use of chiaroscuro (courtesy of cinematographer Russell Harlan), great camera shots, a fast-moving and smart-minded plot, an underlying sense of humor, and fun, solid acting. James Arness’s makeup as the titular creature is more Frankenstein’s Monster than shapeshifter (like it is in Campbell’s story) because of THING’s limited funding─in Campbell’s tale, the Thing has seaweed-like hair, three crimson eyes, a puckered mouth and blue skin.

THING‘s genre-true achievements are  highlighted by Dimitri Tiomkin’s spare, spooky (and science fiction-familiar) score, as well as mood-appropriate art direction by Albert S. D’Agostino (THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944) and John Hughes, billed as John J. Hughes. There’s also a bit of PG-rated, light-hearted kink, involving two characters and rope!

Kenneth Tobey (HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE, 1996) played Capt. Patrick Hendry─in THE NAKED MONSTER (2005, his last film) he played another character with the same name. Other notable cast members include Margaret Sheridan (I, THE JURY, 1953) as Nikki Nicholson, scientific secretary, and Hendry’s romantic interest; Robert Cornthwaite as thorny lead scientist Dr. Arthur Carrington─like Kenneth Tobey, he re-used his character’s name from THING in THE NAKED MONSTER (2005). Douglas Spencer (THIS ISLAND EARTH, 1955) played sarcastic news reporter Ned Scott.

THING is one of my favorite films in its subgenre, a love that filmmaker/composer John Carpenter shares, as evidenced by his television-background use of it in HALLOWEEN (1978) and his 1982 THING remake, titled THE THING.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: Wolf Rilla. Co-screenwriters: Stirling Silliphant, Ronald Kinnoch.)

Storyline:

Blond children with glowing eyes appear in Midwich, an English village, after a freak incident causes its adult inhabitants to briefly pass out and its women to wake up pregnant.

 

Review

Based on John Wyndam’s 1957 science fiction novel THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS, VILLAGE may be one of something rare: a perfect film, one that ably mixes horror and science fiction, like John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece, THE THING. Like THING, VILLAGE is tightly shot, visually exciting, every line of dialogue matters, its pacing never lags (while allowing its excellent actors, among them George Sanders and Michael Gwynn, to give their roles story-enhancing quirks), its score (courtesy of Ron Goodwin) is striking as is its ending─as striking as the iconic, eerie image of the children’s glowing eyes (brought about by superimposing a negative image of their eyes on their pupils when their powers were used). Unlike THING, there is no gore, making this a great introducing-the-kids-to-science-fiction-horror movie. Followed by the good but unnecessary non-sequel CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED (1964, also featuring Clive Powell as a spooky child) and a John Carpenter-helmed 1995 remake of VILLAGE.

THE FOG (1980)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: John Carpenter. Co-screenwriter: Debra Hill.)

Storyline

As the coastal town of Antonio Bay prepares for its centennial, late-April celebration, a supernatural, thick fog creeps into it between the hours of midnight and one a.m., bringing with it death.

Review

Spivey Point, California, mid-April 1880, between the hours of midnight and one a.m. The leprous mariners of the clipper ship Elizabeth Dane see lights along the shore and sail toward them, unaware of the ocean-covered, dangerous rocks that lie along the shore. The Elizabeth Dane strikes the rocks and its crew, with all their treasures, sink beneath the waves. Its treasure is soon recovered by those who live in Spivey Point, and the town of Antonio Bay is established immediately thereafter.

A hundred years later, the denizens of the sleepy town are set to celebrate its centennial anniversary, a big nighttime party in Shelby Square, in the center of town. Prior to that, between midnight and one a.m., April 12^th, a mild earthquake rocks Antonio Bay, electrical power surges through the town (causing lights to come on), car horns honk, phones start ringing, gas pumps to start pumping gas, and a white, glowing fog covers the town. Not only that, but in the church, a book─”Diary of Father Patrick Malone”─falls out of a new crack in a wall. Father Malone (played by Hal Holbrook), grandson of the diary’s author, finds it and begins to read it, horror dawning on his face. That same night, the crew of a local trawler (Sea Grass), also enveloped in the sudden fogbank fifteen miles out, is boarded by ghostly, undead men wielding sabers and hooks from the nineteenth century. The Sea Grass crew does not survive the visit. Not long after that, a boy discovers a piece of driftwood on the beach, bearing part of the Elizabeth Dane’s name.

Further strangeness, fog, ghostly visits, and death follow, culminating in a night of full-blown terror, when the spectral sailors of the Elizabeth Dane attack the townspeople during the centennial celebration in Shelby Square.

This steady-build film is an old-fashioned ghost story, from its opening shots where Mr. Machen (named for the influential supernatural author Arthur Machen?) tells several children about the Elizabeth Dane around a beach campfire. Played by with playful gravitas by the great John Houseman (GHOST STORY, 1981), Machen’s tale ably sets the tone for the rest of this mood-effective-well-paced and classic (in a good way) film.

FOG’s stellar cast adds to its immersibility. Adrienne Barbeau, Carpenter’s then-wife, played Stevie Wayne. Wayne’s nighttime jazz radio show (broadcast from a lighthouse), in addition to Machen’s beachside tale, is the glue that helps structure and connect the players and the film’s action. Jamie Lee Curtis (HALLOWEEN, 1978) played Elizabeth Solley. Tom Atkins (HALLOWEEN III:SEASON OF THE WITCH, 1982) played Nick Castle (real-life name source Nick Castle played Michael Myers/The Shape in HALLOWEEN, 1978). Janet Leigh, Curtis’s real-life mother, played Kathy Williams. Nancy Kyes (HALLOWEEN, 1978) played Nancy Loomis.

Charles Cypher (HALLOWEEN, 1978) played Dan O’Bannon (the character’s name is a shout-out to director Carpenter’s real-life friend, who co-wrote DARK STAR, 1974, with him). George “Buck” Flower played Tommy Wallace (the character’s name is a shout-out to Carpenter’s real-life friend Tommy Lee Wallace, who not only played a “Ghost” in FOG but later directed HALLOWEEN III). Rob Bottin, who also created special makeup and creepy FX for FOG and many other films, played Blake, the leader of the leprous “Ghosts.” And director/co-screenwriter Carpenter made a brief cameo as Bennett, Father Malone’s church assistant who, early in the film, asks Malone for his pay.

Partially filmed in Bodega Bay, also a site for Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS (1963), FOG was shot in anamorphic widescreen Panavision, lending its relatively low budget (under a million dollars) a bigger budget feel.

FOG sports influences and partial quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge (“like an albatross around the neck”), H.P. Lovecraft (“a sweep south of Waitely Point and Arkham Reef”), Vincent Price’s DR. PHIBES films (FOG’s coroner is named after Phibes), Edgar Allan Poe (“Dream Within a Dream” prologue quote), making it not only an entertaining, solid-build ghost-story work, but a genre-reverent and relatively goreless one, with lots of personal references for the director and his cast. Furthermore, Carpenter, in a DVD commentary for THE FOG, said the fate of the Elizabeth Dane (minus its ghostly, deadly visitations) was inspired by a real-life event, the intentional, nineteenth century sinking and plundering of a clipper ship off the coast of Goleta, California.

Worth owning, this. A remake, co-produced by Carpenter, Debra Hill and quite a few others, came out in 2005.