In the Howard Hawks film, the titular Thing is recognizably human, in part because 1950s technology couldn't write the special effects checks Campbell's short story wanted to cash. Due to its limitations and budget, the titular Thing does not transform at all and is instead rejigged into a sentient, self-duplicating vampiric plant-based lifeform. Or, as Carpenter once put it: "a blood-drinking carrot from outer space." In terms of its design, the 1951 Thing (played by James Arness) is really just a frigid Frankenstein without the pathos; a hulking golem with a raised forehead, rubber hands, and a jumpsuit. After forty-minutes of build-up, the film largely obscures Arness in shadow, a move Rob Bottin would absolutely respect (when it came to lighting his creations, Cundy describes Bottin as "sensitive"). Shots of Arness' imposing silhouette and the film's impressive immolation sequence are when the creature is at its most effective. But, all told, the film doesn't innovate beyond the simplistic standard of the time. With the 1950s monster movies of his childhood (and Ridley Scott's Alien) in mind, Carpenter was extremely concerned with avoiding a creature design that would read on-camera as "just a guy in a suit" This bugbear is, in part, why he encouraged Bottin to let his imagination run wild, as well as why he took solace in the chest-chomp scene. It's a sequence that fails, at all levels, to register as human. When Carpenter first saw the finished product of the chest sequence, he felt, "A great sense of relief because what I didn't want to end up with, in this movie, was a guy in a suit."
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05-03-2025 alle ore 08:38
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