It's nearly Valentine's Day and you know what that means! No, it's not time to hang the rope from the ceiling fan again. We covered this last year: you're way too fat for it to support your weight. If you really want to kill yourself you can just keep eating, and then you may at least break a world record while you're at it.
I'm talking about the annual Valentine's Day Horror Movie Marathon! The one reliable feature that I contribute to this site because I literally have an entire year to prepare for it in advance. So if anything happens between April 25, 2011 and February 14, 2012, you can bet that this article will totally ignore it! That's just my commitment to you, the reader.
This year, in honour of the recent DVD release of the prequel to The Thing and breaking the commitment I made just two sentences ago, it's going to be an all Who Goes There?-themed marathon! I won't expect that you've read the original novella that these three films are based on, however, because I know that you're illiterate.
The Thing from Another World
I think it's best to tackle this set in chronological order, so allow me to begin with the original film released in 1951.
The Thing from Another World is slightly different from the later adaptations of John W. Campbell Jr.'s novella, in that the titular alien isn't so much about assimilating and impersonating the human heroes as it is being a giant, humanoid vegetable. The creature is just lucky that this film was made and set in the fifties. If this took place today, at least one of the characters would be vegan and all of their problems would have been solved with a bottle of ranch dressing.
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| "How are we supposed to eat something that can't even cry?" |
John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)
When you hear "The Thing," this is probably the film that you think of—unless you're a teenage girl, because then half of your vocabulary is made up of "thing" and the other half is "like" and "thingy." And you wonder why guys don't understand women. They're as alien to us as anamorphic space creatures are to the rest of humanity. Now excuse me while I hop on my Segway™.
The Thing is the pinnacle of classic 1980s horror films. It's gory, suspenseful, and campy without being ridiculous (Nightmare on Elm Street fans can begin crying any time now).
No matter how hard I try—and clearly I didn't try very hard—there is no way that I can sum up The Thing better than with this quote, which I took from the signature of one xkcd forum member:
"John Carpenter is set to direct a Broadway musical about an uncompromising interstellar shape-shifter who is taught compassion and the finer points of culture by Kurt Russell. It is tentatively titled The Thing & I."
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| "I've got no hands to hug you with. :(" |
The Thing (2011)
If you're of the type that prefers to watch the Star Wars prequels before the original trilogy, you'll likely be upset that I placed this at the end of the list. However, this film is such an homage to the 1982 original that it wouldn't make sense to watch it without that preamble.
This is actually my favourite movie on the list this year, which must sound like sacrilege to other The Thing connoisseurs, but hear me out. The prequel takes everything that was great about John Carpenter's film (minus Kurt Russell's magnificent hat) and adds in the one element that was missing: an alien that can't be defeated by briskly walking away from it. Say what you will about CGI monsters, but in a horror film it's sort of necessary for the hideous creature to be able to chase down its victims. I know that you're supposed to grant it the suspension of your disbelief, but the animatronics of the original film do nothing to present the alien as a capable enemy. Even when it's a guy in a body suit, the fastest the alien ever moves on camera is equal to a slow jog—and that was when it was on fire. The things of the prequel are comparatively menacing, even if some of them look like the shiny, plastic necromorphs from Dead Space.
For those hopeless lovers out there, the prequel even has a burgeoning romantic arc between the protagonist, Kate, and a certain helicopter pilot. I don't want to spoil the ending, but let's just say that I think Kate has a burning desire for him.
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| Flowers wilt. Say it with flamethrowers. |
If there's one thing that you should take from these three films this Valentine's Day, it's that partners in a committed relationship will pressure you into giving up everything you love, whether it be meat, sex, or not being on fire. Tell your significant others how you feel by punching them in the genitals. They'll thank you for being honest and your relationship will be better for it.
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