Anyways, I've decided to do the stories in chronological order. Obviously there will be spoilers for both films, but I'd be surprised if you didn't know them already--especially with Psycho; everything in that movie has become so... is canonized the word? Lionized? Well, I can't think of the word, but it's had an amazing impact on horror films, thriller films... I mean, it's Alfred Hitchcock, so...
The Thing
So The Thing started life as a novella called "Who Goes There?", published in 1938, written by John W Campbell. It's in a "best of" book collection I found--I really tried to read the other stories, I did, but they're so painfully dated. All of these stories except for one was written between 1932 and 1938--so the future is things like "Computers will only be the size of one room in your house! Women will have jobs! Robots!" (pronounced "robutts", of course). Also, he's uncomfortably religious, and I can't figure out if he's racist, or if it was still considered okay to say negro in the thirties. I tried reading the first few, and gave up about halfway through the second story in the collection, "Twilight". In it, a man from a distant and kind of cruddy future whose enchantments are crumbling, goes back in time to 1932-ish, and converses with a regular man, who relates the story to us. Why did I give up? Here: "'"The Moon was just setting now, and as it set, the rosy-silver glow waned and the music grew stronger. It came from everywhere and from nowhere... I do not know how such music could be written. Savages make music too simple to be beautiful, but it is stirring. Semisavages write music beautifully simple, and simply beautiful. Your Negro music was your best. They knew music when they heard it and they sang it as they felt it. Semicivilized peoples write great music. They are proud of their music, and make sure it is known for great music. They make it so great it is top-heavy"'" (Campbell 29). Ohhh.
You see where I'm coming from now? The stories weren't fantastic to begin with, and at that point I was kind of too uncomfortable to continue. (Also this implies that there are no black people in the future, or any other non-white races, so, uh, yeaaah...)
But, I had to read "Who Are You?"!
So, the premise is that there is a research team in Antarctica. In the movie (major spoilers this is your last warning!), the Thing delivers itself to them--it was dug up by a Norwegian team of researchers and presumably kills them all off, one by one, except for one or two last crazed men (one day I'll watch that prequel...)--these last survivors are determined to murder it. The Thing, seeking safety, takes the form of a dog (that's right! It absorbs creatures so it can take on their shape!) and tries to run away. The Norwegians try to shoot it (they are baaaad shots), but it makes it onto the American camp. The men, unaware that the dog is a monster (uh... I... I can't find a good picture of the dog monster? What!?) because it looks and acts like a completely normal dog, protect it, try to reason with the man--but he accidentally blows himself up. (Fun fact! If you speak Norwegian, the whole twist in the movie is spoiled by the man shouting in his language. he says something along the lines of "That's not dog, that's just a thing imitating a dog!")
In the book, the American team finds him and other than that, it's basically the same... Basically. Well, people get absorbed, the hot needle test is in there, and Wilford Brimley builds a spaceship. In other respects it's real different.
The beginning describes the icy tundra, and how dangerous and awful and unforgiving it is: "It was easy for man--or thing--to get lost in ten paces" (Campbell 294). Ohh, I see what you did there! And yes... I know I'm being unfair, and I've had the benefit of seeing the films and them existing and it not being 1938... But still. It seems so campy and obvious. Was that italicization necessary? That seems like he's overdoing it.
So it basically all starts when they discover it, and explain science things that I do not understand at all, and probably aren't considered sound anymore (there's a whole process they go through where they combine dog blood and human blood to see who's been taken over which definitely is not sound that has thankfully been done away with in the Carpenter film).
So in the film, we never see the monster in its "true" form. There are implications--the dog monster grows big scary clawed Hulks hands at one point--but nothing we really see. Actually seeing the monster in this is, therefore, kind of disappointing, though I'm sure people in the thirties cried themselves to sleep at night... It's something like seven feet tall, basic humanoid, scaly, blue tentacles instead of hair, three red glowing eyes, and probably big fangs or something. So I can see how it inspired the fifties film--Carpenter's comment on the original Thing movie (The Thing From Another Planet) was that it was too much like a big Frankenstein monster, it just kind of stalked around, it didn't really do anything out of the ordinary. Clearly this monster would do a lot of that too... (Does that make sense? That I can see it inspiring the fifties film, but not the eighties one? I'm incredibly impressed with Carpenter's version of it).
So yeah. A few scientist guys want to thaw it out and study it. Ultimately they get their way, despite there being an equal number of men who rightfully think that that's a bad idea. It's even frozen with a snarl! Some man offers that it is just because they don't understand that culture--that that snarl could be that race's version of a look of sorrow, or helplessness. Another man rejoins with something like, "If that's that race's look of resignation, I don't want to see it when it's mad". Listen, people recognize facial patterns for a reason. You wouldn't approach a snarling dog, would you? Or a hissing cat? (Jonesy?) No? THEN DO NOT THAW AN ALIEN MONSTER OUT.
So Connant is on watch the night the Thing thaws completely: they debated on holding the Thing and keeping it in deep freeze till they go back to civilization, so I guess it's good that they didn't, but... Man, one guy--I assume it was MacReady--even expresses his desire to burn it with a flamethrower, but no, he's stopped. Anyways, Connant is assigned to watch it...
"Connant picked up the pressure lamp and returned to his chair. He sat down, staring at the pages of mathematics before him. The clucking of the counter was strangely less disturbing, the rustle of the coals in the stove no longer distracting. The creak of the floorboards behind him didn't interrupt his thoughts as he went about his weekly report in an automatic manner, filling in columns of data and making brief, summarizing notes. The creak of the floorboards sounded nearer" (Campbell 308). (Who Are You? by The Who just came up on my shuffle...) But yeah. Again, this is the moment where I have the advantage of having seen the film approximately 9867534452 times. When Connant shows up later, apparently unchanged and undamaged, readers were probably utterly confused. When they revealed he had been assimilated later in the story, I was just kind of like, well, duh. I was actually confused for a while, since he obviously wasn't doing anything suspicious.
(Also he refers to a Geiger counter alternately as a Geiger counter and a cosmic-ray counter? This was the main thing that bothered me about the story. That is so 1950's bad... Unless if that really is some old-timey name for a Geiger counter...?)
"'Blair's blasted potential life developed a hell of a lot of potential and walked out on us'" (Campbell 308).
And, like I said, Connant was the first assimilated. The Thing-Blair says that it's a wonder that the creature didn't eat him--Blair: "'Maybe it di--er--uh--we'll have to find it'" (Campbell 309). Ughhhh, it's clumsy, but that's not its fault...
What's an interesting thing I noticed was that the dogs in the book, unlike in the movie, attack the Thing on site--they can't abide its existence. Of course that made me think of the dogs in the Lovecraft novella "At the Mountains of Madness". They attack all artifacts of the Old Ones on sight and have to be harshly restrained--not to mention that both stories take place in the same icy wasteland. That was published in 1936, so it very well could have influenced Campbell, but who knows?
I don't really have much more... Just scenes that are similar. There's a less-gross dogmonster, Wilford Brimley (Blair) is locked in a shed for a week after becoming possessed by the creature and building a sort of ship/weapon. The blood scene is the same. Carpenter supposedly was enthralled by this scene, but I don't remember exactly what he said about it--something along the lines of literally sitting on the edge of his seat, or something... (The blood scene, where he dips a hot needle in blood samples to see who is an alien--because the alien blood would try to escape--is definitely the bed in the novella. The last thing that really stood out was during one such test, after Connant was revealed: "Garry spoke in a low, bitter voice. 'Connant was one of the finest men we had here--and five minutes ago I'd have sworn he was a man. Those damnable things are more than imitation.' Garry shuddered and sat back in his bunk. And thirty seconds later, Garry's blood shrank from the hot platinum wire, and struggled to escape the tube, struggling as frantically as a suddenly feral, red-eyed, dissolving imitation of Garry struggled to dodge the snake-tongue weapon Barclay advanced at him, white-faced and sweating. The Thing in the test tube screamed with a tiny, tinny voice as MacReady dropped it into the glowing coal of the gallery stove" (Campbell 347).
So, the story ends with the beast being defeated, more of a closed ending than the movie--Carpenter actually revealed that he wanted to make some end twist where MacReady is a Thing too (possibly the whole time, or possibly just infected in that final fight, it wasn't specified), but couldn't think of a good way to do it. This story is pretty readable, though there are some opaque psuedo-scientific sections that are needlessly complex and get boring. It also is kind of hard to follow, what with there being so many characters and with nothing to mark more than a few of them. If I hadn't seen the movie I would have liked it more, though if I hadn't seen the movie, I probably would have just put the book down forever at "Twilight". It exists well on its own, but I think Carpenter did improve on it in a huge way that I think could be considered visionary. His idea of the Thing is really cool, adds tension, and adds some disgustingly awesome scenes (emphasis on disgusting)... Now... To a less extraterrestrial, let's get to our Alfred Hitchcock classic in this double feature...
Psycho
Like I said above, even if you've never seen this movie, you probably know about the famous shower scene, and maybe even the twist with Norman Bates. I will begrudgingly admit that it's more likely that you'll know such tropes regarding this movie than The Thing. As an example of its proliferation in pop culture... There's a Far Side comic about it! (This would be more relevant if it was 1995, but cut me some slack.) Okay... Hmm... Fine, there's an episode of Dexter's Lab that references it (I believe it's the one where Dexter's mom can't find her gloves, but it turns out that the family got her a nice new pair for her birthday and had thrown out the old pair. It's at the very end of the episode). This started as a book--with around seven very bad sequels... Three of them movies, one failed TV series (really!), and two other books by Robert Bloch himself (the author). There was also a pretty crappy remake with--get ready for it--Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. No. Thank. You. Ever. Now, if you've seen the movie, you know the book. It's basically the same--there are a few changes, the relationship with the boyfriend isn't so... raunchy? Well, to an early sixties person, you know. The private investigator is a 1940's fast-talking tough guy--my least favourite characters to read. Last summer I tried to read some forties thrillers/mysteries, and that persona is simply unbearable for me. The main difference is that this book is more from Norman's point of view--we follow our protagonist when she takes the money, of course, and when she is in the shower, and that sort of thing... But we see a lot of the inside of Norman's head, too. We understand his compulsions, his attraction/hate for our showering soon-to-be victim, weird mental patterns and some understanding of why he acted the way he did... He is actually fairly intelligent (and is interested in "obscene" subject matters--cannibal tribe culture, psychology, stuff that Mother would not approve of...), and even tries to get Mother (of course no word on whether she was alive or dead at that point) to read about the Oedipus complex. So it was kind of strange to see that in a weird way, he almost sort of knew what was going on...
Oh, one big change is that Norman Bates is kind of gross. Anthony Perkins--kind of handsome. A little weird looking, but okay, kind of handsome. Polite--yeah, he says a few off things that would put you off, but you would still think of him as okay-looking. The book's Norman Bates? Chubby going on fat, coke bottle glasses, kind of gross.
Actually, Norman is also even made out to be a sympathetic character, even--my first note was that of surprise, when Norman shows that he is aware of the fact that his relationship with his mother isn't quite right: "'If you were half a man, you you'd have gone your own way.' He wanted to shout out at her that she was wrong, but he couldn't. Because the things she was saying were the things he had told himself, over and over again, all through the years. It was true. She'd always laid down the law to him, but that didn't mean he always had to obey. Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed. There had been other widows, other only sons, and not all of them became enmeshed in this sort of relationship. It was really his fault as much as hers. Because he didn't have any gumption" (Bloch 14). Keep in mind that this book existed before the movie, before the split personality trope existed (or at least existed well, Robert Louis Stevenson)--no-one knew the twist, though, is my point. So Norman starts out looking like a pathetic, henpecked figure who is, yeah, kind of gross.
Oh--his relationship with his mother--I mean the real one, not the crazy in-the-cellar-and-in-your-head one is kind of interesting too. The main backstory is the same, father ran off (possibly he was said to have died in the movie), the mother started seeing a new guy, etc, is all true--even the mother and the boyfriend's "suicide pact" (that's what the local sheriff calls it in the book, though I think it's something different in the movie). The movie implies sexual abuse of some sort, though I didn't catch any of that in the book. The closest I found was that one time as a child, Norman was enjoying the look of himself naked in the mirror (implying masturbation, homosexual urges?). His mother came in, saw him, and beat him senseless (aiming for his head, of course) with a silver hairbrush--hence why he needs such thick glasses. That was interesting, to have such incidents in Norman's past life to be looked at. He also refers to woman as bitches and "all those" bitches--though he recalls no incident where women taunted him. That could be frustration at his impotence, his split personality coming out, or anger as the result of some sort of suppression of homosexuality, if we can rightfully take that from the mirror scene.
So skip to Mary's (oh, that's her name?) arrival at the Bates motel. He's awkward around her, of course--his dialogue is mostly the same, but being that this is just written, it can never be nearly as off-putting as Anthony Perkins manages to make it. Anyways. The only reason I marked this is that their meeting takes place in the parlour of the Bates' house, rather than the office of the motel. She notes in amazement how the room appears to be left completely alone--that is, not updated--for the last sixty, seventy years. She notes that it looks like it was "straight out of the Gay Nineties" (Bloch 39). A statement which makes sense--but jars me all the same. When I think nineties, of course I think of the decade I was born in and all that goes with that; of course she'd only be thinking of 1890, though, it's only 1959! That sort of thing weirds me out, though. How, for example, if someone refers to the "roaring twenties", you think of, you know, 1920's, The Great Gatsby, all of that. But by 2040, the twenties will be 2020, still, at the time of this writing, eight years away! Does that make anyone else feel strange? Just me? Ah, well...
"Maybe Mother should be put away. It was getting so he couldn't handle her alone any more. Getting so he couldn't handle himself, either. What had Mother used to say about handling himself? It was a sin. You could burn in hell" (Bloch 55). "Handling himself"--that means exactly what you think it means. Also, did you notice how he said he could hardly handle Mother anymore and then himself, in nearly the same breath?
Ah yes, alone in his room that night, Norman regrets snapping at Mary in defense of his mother, and goes very quickly from feeling as though he would have a real friend in her and admiring her sweetness, and even imagining he could love her and be in a relationship with her, to becoming upset that by the next morning she'd probably be gone from his life forever, and even if she wasn't, she'd reject his romantic advances and, worst of all, mock him. At this point he starts calling her a bitch, and gets frustrated at himself for being impotent and lacking the bravery required to proposition to her and sleep with her. I found that kind of interesting, as it seems hard to see the movie's Bates as ever having sex, or even knowing what it is... If that makes sense. Anyways, this weirdly aggressive thought pattern occurs into the shower scene (when he watches her) until he "passes out". The line of thought ends when he wakes up, and once he finds the body, he is no longer thinking in such a strangely confrontational way.
The scene where the car momentarily stops as it sinks into the swamp is even in the book. Props to Alfred Hitchcock for making it so perfectly tense!
The book also discusses Norman disposing of the body (in the trunk of the car). Strangely enough, I never wondered what he did with it in the movie. So--yeah, I thought that bit was a little gruesome.
Um... Yeah, my next note doesn't come until Norman moves Mother down to the fruit cellar. Instead of saying her little line about him putting her down there because she was a fruitcake (or something along those lines) she just accuses him of not loving her anymore, trying to imprison her, etc. Norman assures her that he does love her, because if he didn't, she would just be in the state hospital for the criminally insane. Mother responds: "'Yes, Norman, I suppose you're right. That's where I'd probably be. But I wouldn't be there alone'" (Bloch 147). Bloch is good!
So the sister goes to investigate, and she books a room at the motel (the same room!) with her now-deceased sister's boyfriend. Lila defiantly announcing that she is going to the motel: "...the sharp shadow line slashed across her neck. For a moment, it looked as though somebody had just cut off Lila's head..." (Bloch 170). That one... Not so clever, Bloch. Oh, and did I mention that unlike in the movie, where Mary is merely stabbed to death in the shower, Mary's head is actually cut off! Yikes... And a little unrealistic, even if you've got a really good knife.
Oh, and things get weird when the sister and the boyfriend pull in. Norman starts freaking out, so he starts drinking to calm himself down. After two drinks, the car pulls in, and things get really weird: "[The car] had nothing to distinguish it from any other car, no out-of-state license or anything like that, but Norman knew right away that they were here. When you're a psychic sensitive, you can feel the vibrations" (Bloch 175). I--what!? Where did that come from?
"'Oh yes, I brought Mother back home with me. That was the exciting part, you see--going out to the cemetery at night and digging up the grave... At first I thought she really was dead. But she wasn't, of course. She couldn't be. Or else she wouldn't have been able to communicate with me while I was in the hospital all that while. It was only a trance state, really; what we call suspended animation. I knew how to revive here. There are ways, you know, even if some folks call it magic. Magic--that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. Actually, it's a force, a force which can be harnessed if you know the secret. Life is a force too, a vital force. And like electricity, you can turn it off and on, off and on. I'd turned it off, and I knew how to turn it on again'" (Bloch 190-191). I, uh, what? No thank you Norman Bates, I no longer want this from your point of view, this is getting really weird...
Oh, one more difference is that Norman's insanity doesn't completely come from being to possessive of his Mother, and vice versa. At least not while she was alive. What set him off in the book, in what is basically the same wrap-up scene that basically explains his psychosis at the end of the movie, is that he walks in on his mother and her boyfriend having sex. Because it was the thirties and sex wasn't real without rings on fingers, I guess they covered up and quickly announced that it was okay because they were getting married. Norman later poisoned them both. (Hey, isn't that what sets the kid off in the Halloween movies too? Or something? The original Halloween is just so damn boring...) Well, whatever. The book wraps up in almost the exact same way, with the climax, the psychoanalysts explaining everything--even the final words from Mrs Bates in the film mirror the last few sentences of the book: "She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars. It lighted on her hand. If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly. But she didn't swat it. She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that proved what sort of person she really was. Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..." (Bloch 223).
Compare that to the film: "It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..." (Source)
So, wrap-up? Both books were good. Their main faults were in me, in that I had seen both films before even realizing either was originally a book. Campbell's story is a little dated, and drags at times, but I'm sure the audiences in the thirties were practically going insane. It's readable, and it's not necessary at all to the movie, but it doesn't hurt any. If you really like the movie, go ahead, if the movie wasn't your thing, it's not worth it. As for Psycho, yeah, I prefer the movie, but again, I saw that first. Plus, you've have Anthony Perkins delivering in an amazing performance, Alfred Hitchcock, the music, all those iconic scenes... The movie builds something that words on a page simply cannot. It really is a classic, and has not aged like some other Hitchcock films (I like The Birds, but yeah, it doesn't quite hold up that well). If you haven't seen it yet, go NOW. I command it! Even if that isn't your movie genre, you're going to be impressed. And if parts of this post seemed confusing, it is because I didn't want to go out and say directly what the twist was... Though, again, Psycho is a classic and I would honestly be surprised if you didn't know all the twists and tricks. Even if you've never seen it before, there are definitely elements you've seen ripped off in tons of other films/comic books/etc.
As for The Thing, it's a little gorier. It's more of an Alien movie, but grosser. Really, I made Alex watch it, and it looked like he was going to throw up a few times. It is pretty nasty. But if you rent/buy it and start getting grossed out, just watch the claymation test run in the special features. Oh, and The Thing is really long. I tend to get a little antsy towards the end. But I like it! It is good, and it's considered one of Carpenter's best films. So... That's cool. Also a detached head grows spider legs and scuttles away! (I had to add that... Reading about that detail was what made me want to watch the movie in the first place...)
MLA Citation Information: Bloch, Robert. Psycho. TOR: New York, 1959.
Campbell, John W. The Best of John W. Campbell. Ballantine Books: New York, 1976. (290-353).*
*I don't know if citing page numbers is right, or if I should have somehow worked the novella title into there, but those are the pages Who Goes There? is on, in any case...
