The Thing

The Thing is yet another film that has been remediated several times. The two film posters I want to look at are from 1982 and 2011 films directed by, respectively, John Carpenter and Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr.  Compared to the last few posters, these are actually quite similar in visual appearance. However, various elements such as the taglines, and the images of the thing can offer varied interpretations on the creature’s monstrosity, or lack thereof.

In the 1982 film poster, we see a very blue, very icy-looking landscape, alluding to the fact that the narrative takes place in Antarctica. We can assume that the figure presented is the thing itself, with a shining bright light in place of its face. I would say the most striking feature of this film poster is the tagline, which reads, “The ultimate in alien terror.” Oddly enough, the thing in this poster does not appear even the slightest bit alien. It simply looks like a man wearing a snowsuit, lacking any stereotypically "alien" attributes such as tentacles, claws, or scales. This poster seems to be presenting an extremely complex image of the thing, in that visually it looks human, but in reality it is an alien terror.

We might look to poster number two for comparison. The image on the right presents a similar icy landscape, and the negative space presents a contrasting relationship between the white snow and the black background. The thing is pictured again in a snowsuit, but instead of hands it possesses what look like claws, which certainly draws attention to its alien-ness. The tagline below the title reads, “It’s not human yet.” The poster alludes to the idea of the visible alien becoming human rather than the visible human becoming alien. Similar to the 1982 poster, it conveys a great deal of contrast between text and image. The 1982 interpretation seems to focus more on the uncanny as invoking fear, while the 2011 poster dwells more on outward monstrosity as invoking fear, similar to my speculations on Invasion of the Body Snatchers.