The Thing

  It's no secret that I'm a dnd nerd. This is something that becomes very well known very soon into talking with me, whether it's through the introduction of talking about my characters (in which I inevitably start talking about whatever shenanigans or tragedies my dnd characters are going through in my current dnd campaigns) or my rather absurd collection of dice (go on. Ask me about them. I welcome it. I have many pictures). However, I recently (just last week!) picked up the latest dnd pre-written campaign module, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, that was published in August of last year to run for my players. I haven't yet finished reading the whole thing, but the Afterword caught my attention. Chris Perkins writes, "Isolation is a bit theme of this adventure. Little did I know that Icewind Dale would be published during a pandemic that would isolate billions of people throughout the world, myself included, trapping us in our dungeons for weeks on end."

The quote stuck with me- especially when going through the remainder of the Afterword, in which Perkins references The Thing as being one of the primary inspirations for the work- and indeed it does share many similarities. (And fun fact, it even references Alien!) Icewind Dale includes a setting where the characters, both player and non-player, are trapped within a neverending winter, forced to survive with limited resources while not knowing exactly who they can trust- all while dealing with their own isolation and knowledge that help is unlikely to come.

I'd heard of the tradition with Antarctica researchers watch The Thing right after the last flight for the summer leaves, but beforehand I had never known exactly what the film itself involved. I was expecting, I think, something a little more like The Blob (though I'll admit I haven't seen that either yet, but I know the similarities with the cold weather). A shapeshifting doppelganger wasn't in my top list of guesses- but doesn't that make things a lot more terrifying?

I commented on how I typically don't watch older movies with Night of the Living Dead because I'm not particularly keen on the graphics or even film quality- but I was pleasantly surprised to find that lacking within The Thing. Sure, there were some funky animatronics, but the design and technology in general exceeded my expectations. I was reading up on some trivia after, and saw that the mechanics at the time sparked a major jump in quality when it involved graphics like that- it makes me wonder if some of the technology inspired the incredibly realistic and masterfully crafted puppets within Jurassic Park.

The isolation was a major factor in this movie, as well as the fallback of "you don't know who you can trust"- but both incredibly effective, and lended itself to being, in my opinion, one of the most genuinely creepy movies we've watched so far this term. It extrapolates the relatively simple concepts of distrust and isolation, and builds on itself more and more until even at the very end you're not sure whether the Thing is completely dead or not with the reintroduction of Childe- who claimed to have gotten lost in a snowstorm, but who can completely say for certain?

Even the way the movie started out caught my attention in a very simple manner- we're watching a dog run across a tundra, being shot at. It raises questions- why are they shooting at the dog? Who are these people in general? Yet as simple as it is, it's effective- it draws the viewer in, and sets up an innate theory of where the Thing originally comes from.

And as Icewind Dale points out, it was a rather unfortunate (or applicable) theme for recent times. Diagnostics on the Thing's assimilation process shows that within 27,000 hours it would infect every living thing on Earth- or a little over three years. One year into our own pandemic and you can't help but question whether our sickness is going to be around that long- or if the estimate for the Thing's infection was an over-exaggeration, given how effective it seems to be at assimilating those it comes in contact with. Unfortunately I don't know if quarantine would work against a monster who can actively pursue others, instead of spreading just to those it happens to come in contact with.

Like any classic horror movie, The Thing also involves quite a bit of tragedy, hopelessness, and inevitable ambiguity. All characters but two perish in one way or another, and even at the end it fades to black with the grim fact that the fire keeping them warm won't last long, and soon the temperatures will plummet to -100. An effective end that reflects the themes woven throughout- isolation and inevitability.