This classic 1951 creature-feature was the model for John Carpenter’s 1982 horror masterpiece The Thing. Both are based on the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr. and concern a team of Arctic (or Antarctic) researchers dealing with first contact with a hostile alien being that crashes its UFO in the ice.
In adapting Who Goes There?, Carpenter stuck close to the original text, with a grossly shapeshifting alien that assimilates its victims and sows paranoia and distrust amid the small group. But The Thing From Another World is much less about the enemy within than the enemy without.
In Howard Hawks’ postwar production, the alien is rarely seen (and when it does appear, it’s just a vintage 1950s guy-in-a-suit). It’s also now a plant-based life-form that feeds on blood. But director Christian Nyby and Hawks — who co-wrote the film and, according to legend, effectively directed it, or at least was constantly deferred to by the inexperienced Nyby — are more interested in it using it as a nameless, almost featureless external force that can throw the kettled human resistance into relief.
This makes the movie a classic exercise in building tension through the unseen; it’s less scary than it is relentlessly suspenseful. It also exposes a typically Hawkesian worldview, gabby and mildly cynical, but with a sincere moral humanism at its core. When conflict arises among the denizens of the research base, it’s philosophical, not personal.
Air Force captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) favors battling the Thing (James Arness) to save lives and neutralize the threat to humanity, even if it means disobeying his distant commanders. Lead scientist Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) wants to engage with the alien, study it, glean knowledge from it. On paper, the doctor’s arguments make sense. But, without demonizing the scientist, the film sides with the unflappable practicality of the captain and his airmen against a malevolent force that cannot be known.
As tense as the movie is, there’s something cheerful and optimistic about its vision of a mismatched, crosstalking crew — including Margaret Sheridan’s coolly elegant secretary and Douglas Spencer’s gangling journo — surviving through consensus, ingenuity, and spirited debate. But The Thing from Another World never fully shakes its Cold War dread of a deathless force from above, come to crush society, echoed in Spencer’s famous cry: “Watch the Skies!”
Where to watch: Streaming free on Tubi and Roku, or to rent or buy on Amazon, Apple, and similar services.
Polygon’s annual Halloween Countdown is a 31-day run of short recommendations of the best horror movies, shows, TV episodes, and online specials to stream for the Halloween season. You can find the entire calendar here.
