The Thing-Film Analysis Essay

Nelson Wirstrom

John Carpenter’s

“The Thing”

Bennings death scene analysis

“The Thing”,  directed by John Carpenter in 1982, was a thrilling horror film well known for its stunning and gruesome practical effects. This film was an adaptation of the film “The Thing from Another World”, directed by Christian Nyby in 1951. The film centers around an arctic research team who are attacked by an unidentifiable organism that can consume and impersonate other animals or people. The Thing quickly infiltrates the crew and they must adapt to the ever changing foe in order to survive. I will be analysing the Bennings death scene, which takes place about halfway through the film. In this particular bit the Bennings character is found being consumed by the Thing, and Windows runs outside to get the others. Upon returning they cannot find him, and see that the Bennings Thing has escaped through a window. They chase it outside, and after seeing that the creature is definitely not Bennings, MacReady douses it in gas and lights it on fire. After watching the whole film, I felt that this would be a good scene to go over because of the interesting use of long shots, and the 180 degree rule. This scene manages to do a whole lot with very little, and uses an almost entirely wordless sequence to drive the real idea of the Thing’s ability to consume and disguise.  

The scene opens with Windows discovering the Thing apparently in the process of transforming. After a medium shot of Windows we see a brief closeup of Bennings’ clothes, covered in blood, before a slow cut on the look as Windows discovers the Thing mid-transform. We hear everything before we can see it, there are wet sliding sounds that grow louder as Windows turns, building up the anticipation or horror as to what he might be looking at. It finally cuts to a medium shot of the Bennings-Thing mess, only giving the audience a few moments to see what is going on. The audience is given more time to mount tension than to actually see what their tension was mounting about, and the camera cuts back a medium shot of Windows fleeing to the right and out of frame.

After a short shot from over a character's shoulder from inside a car outside, briefly placing us in a conversation which had begun taking place earlier, we see a wide shot of the door into the facility. The outside shots throughout this entire film are extremely focused on lighting and color. Any scenes that take place outside are lit with contrasting blue and white lights, emphasizing the snow that covers every surface and effectively suggesting the idea of the frigid temperatures outside. The audience is almost able to see the cold around the characters, embodied by the soft blues and harsh white. The long shot focuses on Windows as he leaves the building and races across the screen from left to right. The camera pans to track him as he approaches the duo in the truck all the way to the right. We then pan back across as they move all the way left, back where they came from. I thought that this shout was interesting only in that they were able to relay this quick exchange with a single long shot, panning right and then back to the left, returning to its original position.

The trio re-enter the building. It should be noted, since I already discussed the color outside, that all the interior shots in the film use lighting to the opposite effect, everything has a mostly brown palette lit with warm oranges and yellows, giving the idea of warmth that must exist inside the building, contrasting heavily against the cold feeling created outside. We return to a medium shot from the same angle as when Windows discovered the Bennings-Thing, all three of them lined up to frame each of their reactions at the same time. We are shown another shot similar from before, where the monster should have been, but nothing is there but a few smears. This shot is quick, only a couple seconds, and gives the audience just enough time to establish that the creature is no longer there. We return to the medium shot of the trio, and pan across to a broken window as MacReady runs over to it and looks out. There is a cut-on-the-look to wide shout of the outside cold, again emphasized by the colored lighting, of Bennings stumbling in a zigzag through the snow. His back is turned and we cannot see his face. We get another long shot of the three, again moving from left to right as they leave the building. Alarms have started to blare, but besides this there is no background sound or music, creating an eerie quiet around the whole situation. We return the the long shot of Bennings, his back still turned as he falls to his knees in the snow. Throughout this whole next sequence, the audience is never allowed to see Benning’s face, raising the level of fear or suspicion within the audience. They are left wondering if it is the face of Bennings, or if it is really some horrible monster.

The wide shot goes on for a while, showing with Bennings kneeling directly in the center as the action begins to unfold around him. Several things happen at once, MacReady lights the flare, Windows tackles his crewmate away from the form of Bennings, and the rest of the crew move to surround the form. We see all this from an observational standpoint, seeing the crew as they scramble to handle the situation, but not actually being involved in it. From there we move to a shot over Bennings’ left shoulder, but still unallowed to see his face as his head is down and he is mostly out of focus. The focus is on MacReady as he exclaims that the thing is not Bennings. Suspenseful brass music has quietly begun to swell at this point, just beneath the sounds of the alarms and the character’s shuffling. This ads a layer of suspense that the audience would otherwise not be aware of if they weren't paying attention. The next shot is a point-of-view medium shot from MacReady, centering Bennings in the shot. The camera has flipped to the other end of its 180 degree line. As he turns his grotesque arms are finally revealed to the audience, showing that this is no longer a person at all but something else entirely. In this small shot alone the writers establish that the Thing can really look like whatever it takes. As the Bennings monster turns to face the camera it emits a completely inhuman scream, cementing the idea of a monster from humanity. The camera moves back to the other side of the 180 degree line, over the monster’s shoulder, now entering the rising action as MacReady knocks over a barrel and we get a close up of the gasoline spilling into the snow.    Following this is a slow medium shot pan of all of the crew members as the camera pans left to see each of them. This is apparently from the monster’s point of view, and it is here that the camera actually breaks the 180 degree rule, showing a full 360 view via its long pan across each of the characters. This allows the audience to contemplate the loss of humanity and transformation of Dr. Bennings, as we watch each of the characters do the same. The music rises right on this cut, with eerie synth notes ringing out to punctuate the moment.

The camera then returns to its 180 degree boundaries and we see over Bennings’ shoulder at MacReady once again, and he throws the flair. With a cut on the action the camera returns to a wide shot of the group, as the flair hits the ground and the monster is engulfed in flames. The shot puts us back outside the action and removes us from the POV, once again letting the audience ponder the events as the monster burns and emits one last scream and the music rises to a dramatic peak.

This whole scene works well to keep the audience in mystery most of the time while exploring the idea of the monster meeting man. It keeps the actual gruesome visuals that the film is known for low and focuses on the more psychological aspects of storytelling. It has many wide shots that put the audience in an observational place which allows them to think about the actual ramifications of what is happening as opposed to the panic of actually being part of the crowd as the monster is surrounded. It’s face is kept hidden from the audience for most of the scene through clever shot work that creates an air of suspense and horror that comes from not knowing what to expect. At one point it even cleverly breaks the 180 degree rule to express the horror of the crew. The shots are lit in a specific way to relay the idea of the cold and isolation at the camp, and the music is subtle but carefully planned to rise with the tension of the moment, building to the final reveal of the monster and the reaction of the crew. At the conclusion of the scene, the audience is left knowing without a doubt the true power that The Thing is capable of.