Spend The Night: In The Fridge With A Monster

The Thing From Another World (aka The Thing) - (1951. Dir Christian Nyby) / The Thing (1982. Dir. John Carpenter)
One of the first, certainly the best, big Hollywood movies to look to the stars and get everybody really worried. A team of US scientists defrost an alien space craft found buried under the Arctic ice and the wish they hadn’t when the other worldly pilot goes on the rampage killing all in its path. Christian Nyby gets the director credit but Hollywood producer/director/screenwriter Howard Hawks took a special interest in the project and was on set ‘guiding’ the course of the movie throughout, and it shows. Hawks’ look, style and eye for epic statements in confined places is all over the movie as is the very thinly veiled anti-communist metaphor. The reds are on ice but if we invite them for cocktails they’ll take over the world.Based on the John Campbell short story, 'Who Goes There?', The Thing... was made on the tightest of budgets and a no name cast. The result, though, is a taut, thrilling shocker with a sense of urgency and panic that stays with the viewer long after the action’s over. The casting, fabulous use of lighting and shadows and breakneck dialogue written by Hawks were the keys. And the spooky musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin sends shivers down the spine. The movie also has the distinction of being the first to actually show what a creature from another world might look like - not pleasant.Team leader Capt. Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), is the gruff no-nonsense boss, highly respected by his loyal crew who spend the first reel trying to set him up with the sultry scientist (who happens to bean ex girlfriend) played by Margaret Sheridan. Fate reunites the pair as she assists bumbling boffin Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), whose liberal sensibilities put the entire base in danger. His reasoning that the alien is only on a homicidal rampage because he is ‘misunderstood’ (a theme picked up in Rebel Without A Cause, teenagers on the rampage being another Hollywood pet obsession in the early to mid 1950s), turns around and bites him on the backside (literally) as the body count rises. James Arness plays the eponymous rampaging monster and the surviving crew must act fast to destroy him less he escapes the icy confines and attempts to destroy the entire planet. A bloodier, but just as good, remake was released in 1982 starring Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter. The premise was basically the same except this time the monster concealed itself in the skin of it’s victims with far gorier and graphic results. Carpenter’s take on the alien threat was released as the Cold War was spitting ice cubes, but the frosty threat and subtly icy fear that informs the original is dispatched for gung ho heroics and some extremely nasty (and very entertaining) set pieces.

The Food: Frozen cod steaks in butter sauce would work - as long as you don’t defrost them. Equally good for flushing out aliens would be an ultra raw and bloody slab of steak. But it’s probably best to avoid the fridge altogether if you’re unnerved by deep frozen monsters.

The drink: A nice hot cup of tea with a liberal dash of rum will steady the nerves. How about an anti-freeze chaser on the side.