And you thought film studios were remake-happy nowadays. For one reason or another, the 1980s saw a series of remakes of classic sci-fi/horror movies from the 1950s. These weren't just any remakes, however, but works of cinema that not only stand on their own two feet but in many respects outdo the originals. Sometimes they follow the original pretty closely (The Blob), sometimes they use the original as little more than a jumping-off point (The Thing, The Fly), but in all three cases we're treated to entertaining, shocking, expertly crafted science-fiction filmmaking of the highest level.
(OK, caveat time. I write this post with a bit of trepidation, since the only one of the '50s originals I've actually seen is The Fly, and that was only once many, many years ago. That said, I don't intend to talk that much about the originals anyway, since the post's ostensible '80s-remake-of-'50s-scifi-classic theme is actually little more than an excuse to talk about three awesome '80s sci-fi/horror movies. The fact that they're all based on '50s originals doesn't really affect what I think of them, it just helps me to lump them together. Whew, I'm glad I got that confession off my chest.)
— SPOILERS . . . FROM ANOTHER WORLD! —
The Thing (trailer), directed by the great John Carpenter and released on June 25, 1982—the very same day as another high-water mark in cinematic science fiction, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner—is loosely based on 1951's The Thing from Another World (trailer), directed by Howard Hawks (but credited to Charles Nyby), itself based on the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John Campbell. (In a counter-example to the general trend of adaptation decay, Carpenter's film is more faithful to the novella than Hawks's.) In Carpenter's film, a sleepy American outpost in Antarctica becomes the scene of a strange attempt by Norwegians from a neighboring outpost to kill a sled dog. The Norwegians are killed and the dog taken in by the Americans, but they soon learn that the dog is actually an alien, discovered in the ice by the unfortunate Norwegians, that can copy and assimilate other organisms, including humans. Isolated and afraid, they try to figure out who on their small crew is still human and who is already a "thing" bent on assimilating the rest.
Simply put, this is one of my favorite movies ever. First off, it's got a ridiculous cast, with Kurt Russell (fresh from working with Carpenter on Escape from New York), Keith David (who would go on to work with Carpenter on They Live and narrate those Navy recruitment ads—"Accelerate your life!"), Wilford Brimley (yes, that Wilford Brimley!), and Thomas Waites (who got run over by a subway train in The Warriors), among others. Carpenter makes this sausage-fest interesting by imbuing it with so much suspense and claustrophobic dread that you're almost afraid to move; he's greatly assisted in this by a simple, ominous score by the master himself, Ennio Morricone.
As great as so many elements in this film are, the real star of The Thing is the special effects. The 1980s were a golden age of practical effects, when the technology and skills were at their most advanced but before computer-generated effects started taking over in the 1990s. (Digression/rant: The problem with CG effects, even when done impeccably well, is that they take the wonder out of special effects. With a few taps on a keyboard you can make literally anything imaginable. Practical effects, which actually have to exist in three-dimensional space and obey the laws of physics, require a staggering—indeed, inspiring—amount of skill, ingenuity, and dumb luck to pull off. If done well, the payoff is special effects that not only look far more real than any CG effect—because they are real—but make the audience's jaws drop as they wonder, "How'd they manage to do that?" Though we've seen some filmmakers reject the Lucasian excesses of CG effects and embrace practical effects—notably del Toro in Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, and Hellboy 2—we still have a long way to go before we'll see practical effects return to their '80s glory. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.) Though all three of these films—and many others from the era; An American Werewolf in London (example) and Videodrome (example) come to mind—have some fantastic practical effects, The Thing is simply head and shoulders above the rest. From the dog-thing's transformation in the kennel to the defibrillator scene (doesn't Palmer (David Clennon) just sum up the situation perfectly?) to Blair-thing's stretching apart Garry's face at the end, The Thing just goes from triumph to triumph effects-wise. This is real "movie magic" (even if it feels less "magical" than "stomach-turning"). The combination of astonishing special effects, a great cast, an intriguing story, palpable atmosphere, and brilliant execution on Carpenter's part makes The Thing an unforgettable film.
The 1986 remake of The Fly (trailer) has the same basic premise as the 1958 original (trailer)—a scientist invents a teleportation machine but teleports himself with a fly in the machine with him, causing him to turn into a half-man, half-fly mutant—but David Cronenberg departed from the original significantly, in both story and tone. The original is told in flashbacks, as a police inspector tries to get to the bottom of why the scientist's wife killed him. In the end, we find out that the scientist's head and arm turned into those of the fly, and the fly's turned into those of the scientist—leading to this particularly disturbing classic climactic scene. Cronenberg's film, on the other hand, is structurally more straightforward, simply telling the story of Seth Brundle's last weeks chronologically. Wasting no time, the film begins when Seth (Jeff Goldblum) invites journalist Ronnie (Geena Davis) back to his home/lab to show her his teleportation pods (no, that's not just his pickup line); they become lovers while he continues to work the kinks out of his invention, but soon he follows in his 1958 predecessor's footsteps and tests it on himself without checking for insect interlopers first. Unlike the switcheroo scenario in the original, Seth and the fly have their genetic material fused into one being, initially simply Seth with greater strength and reflexes but eventually mutating into an increasingly fly-like state, becoming "Brundlefly."
Structurally the film is very simple: three characters (Seth, Ronnie, and Ronnie's scuzzy editor Stathis (John Getz)), begins with Seth and Ronnie's first meeting, ends with his death. Unlike the original, there's no mystery; we see everything that happens to Brundle over the course of his mutation (often in gruesome detail). The story doesn't derive its power from some classic sci-fi "big reveal" but from witnessing what happens to Seth as he physically, and eventually psychologically, loses his humanity. The film is a tragedy of the Classical sort, in which the protagonist is brought to ruin by his own faults and excesses, in Seth's case a pride and ambition on display from the very first scene. What's so heartbreaking is that he never fully loses his humanity; even at the very end we can still see a man in there, a twisted remnant of the brilliant, handsome, charming man we saw at the beginning. The intimacy of the story, Cronenberg's expert blending of the dramatic and sci-fi/horror elements, Howard Shore's terrific score, and the realistic immediacy with which the tragic consequences of Seth's hubris are depicted (i.e., the graphic body horror) make The Fly a powerful experience, both visually and emotionally.
The Fly is another '80s high-water mark in practical effects, in this case primarily the makeup and costume work for Seth Brundle. David Cronenberg is the King of Body Horror; this is displayed not only in his earlier films like The Fly, Videodrome, Scanners, Naked Lunch, and eXistenZ, with their blurring of the line between machine and body (bodies used as machines, machines united with bodies, one transforming into the other, the machine-like manipulation of bodies, etc.), but also in his more recent, somewhat more mainstream films like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, with their often unflinchingly graphic depictions of violence. The Fly is the cornerstone of Cronenberg's filmography in this regard, with the entire film centering on the grotesque transformations the protagonist undergoes: the inside-out baboon, the arm-wrestling match in the bar, the deterioration of Seth's body, his climactic final transformation into Brundlefly. Considering the mutation's centrality to the story, the film simply wouldn't work if the effects weren't convincing; the emotional power that The Fly conveys is therefore a real testament to the special-effects craftsmanship on display.
One final note on The Fly: Cronenberg and Oscar-winning effects artist Chris Walas should've at least gotten a "special thanks" credit in District 9, considering how indebted that film was to The Fly, from the progressive mutation to finger nails peeling off to the sympathetic protagonist's bewildered, terrified reaction to what's happening to him. District 9 was great, but in a lot of respects it was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Finally, The Blob (trailer). Honestly, this 1988 remake of the 1958 original (trailer) starring Steve McQueen isn't as good as the other films discussed in this post, and I haven't seen it in several years. It may not have the suspense of The Thing or the pathos of The Fly, but it's still a solid movie with generally decent special effects—especially when the Blob is dissolving some hapless earthling. It's also got a secret weapon: Kevin Dillon. That's right, Johnny Drama himself has a starring role in this flick! If that's not enough to convince you you're in the presence of quality cinema, it's got some great, gruesome kills—the guy trying to cop a feel on his date (here, starting at about 1:20) is one for the history books—including a bona-fide kid kill (sorry, I'm not linking to that, you'll just have to watch the movie). This is a movie that doesn't make you think or feel too much; it just offers up an hour and a half of slimy, gelatinous entertainment full of unsuspecting townsfolk and their awesomely disgusting demises. What more could you ask for from a movie about a giant, man-eating wad of mucus? (The answer is "not that much," considering it's not exactly a very compelling antagonist.)
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Though technically a couple years too early, the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (trailer) would be interesting to compare to the 1956 original (trailer), with their different takes on a common theme of paranoia and social/political anxiety—especially since I've actually seen the original. But that'll have to wait for another post.
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