Who Goes There?

CAMPBELL Jr., John W., The Thing From Another World – Cherry Tree Book no.408, Fantasy Books/Cherry Tree Novels/Kemsley Newspapers Ltd., London, nd. (c.1950s).

Octavo; paperback; 192pp. Mild wear; covers rubbed and edgeworn with some light creasing text block edges lightly toned with some spotting; light foxing to the preliminaries; original printed price on the front cover scribbled out and a new price added in ink. Very good.

In 1938, writing under a pseudonym, John W. Campbell Jr. wrote a short story which was destined to become a touchstone of 1950s Cold War drama. “Who Goes There?” (later re-published as “The Thing from Another World” or just “The Thing”) was a tale about research scientists trapped in Antarctica who discover a frozen alien creature, one that can shift its form to replicate virtually any living organism. Once it escapes confinement, the story becomes less about the discovery of an unmentionable horror, and transforms into one of infiltration, hidden danger and paranoia. It’s a very effective format and informed much of horror cinema in the years after its publication, including such films as “Invaders from Mars”, “The Bodysnatchers” and “The Blob”, all the while feeding off the real-world paranoia that tensions between Russia and the US were brewing. Inevitably it was turned into a movie itself which we will investigate below.

The print version is an interesting read. It eschews any attempt at grand guignol, in your face horror, relying instead on inference and suggestion to unfold its drama. In this way it heightens the notion that, even in a close-knit community, it’s impossible to keep track of everyone all of the time. The action tends to glide over the attacks by the monster and jump to a narrative moment afterwards when some attempt at re-grouping and evaluation takes place. Most descriptions of the creature are quite oblique. In this way it’s quite a confusing read too, and you have to work to keep track of who’s who (which is quite likely the point!).

The locale and all of the characters are established in this version: McReady our hero, biologist Blair and Copper the medic, and Commander Garry the team leader, among others. Later film iterations dispense with some of this detail, even the location at times. McReady – like many science fiction heroes of the day – is described as mythical in proportion, and there’s a clear debt to the Doc Savage novels going on with him:

“Moving from the smoke-blued background, McReady was a figure from some forgotten myth, a looming, bronze statue that held life, and walked. Six-feet-four inches he stood… And he was bronze – his great red-bronze beard, the heavy hair that matched it. The gnarled, corded hands gripping, relaxing, gripping, relaxing, on the table planks were bronze. Even the deep-sunken eyes beneath heavy brows were bronzed.”

It’s evident that they had this description firmly in mind when casting Kurt Russell as McReady in the John Carpenter film.

The decision to base the story in Antarctica is likely a derivation from Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”, although the story is in no way a copycat version of that other narrative – it is clearly its own beast. The sense of isolation, claustrophobia and the threat of the unknown are definite hallmarks of both tales, however. The decision to use the name ‘Copper’ for one of the characters is also interesting – perhaps an homage to Basil Copper, the author of the Lovecraftian novel “The Great White Space”? All of these works begin with the idea of entering the unknown and discovering strange realities; it is only in Campbell’s story where we see the strangeness exploring as well and entering our – from its perspective - unknown reality.

The other clear debt to “Mountains” is the level of scientific exactitude that is on display here. Everything about the scientific base and the roles and duties of its occupants is laid out for the reader in almost excruciating detail. To be fair, these kinds of stories – where the location is the important ‘character X’ that finishes the cast list – do require this amount of exposition, otherwise the closed-in sense of being trapped, the limited amounts of resources and the high level of the stakes involved cannot be adequately conveyed. Lovecraft knew this; Campbell Jr. does too.

There is a lot of conversation that happens here as well. Once the nature of the Thing starts to be discerned, there’s quite a bit of theorizing and cogitation about its origins that takes place. Much of it – especially to people who generally know the deal as far as this story is concerned – is wildly off piste and fantastical but nevertheless is probably just the sort of discussion that would take place in the face of this nightmare. A thing I particularly like, and which I had overlooked on my first reading way back when, was that the creature has an active and telepathic sentience which expresses itself in the dreams of those sleeping nearby, even while it is frozen solid: this resonates highly with the sort of things Lovecraft discusses in his tales about the unbidden malevolence of the Mythos.

The reason that this tale had so great an impact is that it spoke directly to fears of Communist infiltration which were being wildly disseminated in the US at the time of its release. Communists were a real threat, it was assumed; they looked like us and they acted like us: there was no way to tell who was who. Replacing them with the symbol of the creature from an alien planet, these fears were crystallised and made manifest. The enemy was a “Red under the Bed”, as much as it was a Thing from Another World.

NYBY, Christian & Howard Hawks (Dirs.), “The Thing from Another World”, Winchester Pictures, 1951.

It was inevitable that someone would turn the story into a movie, such was its popularity. The bonus in this regard, is that it was possible to script the narrative such that it could dispense with any over-the-top special effects and boil the particulars down to an intense psychological study. Much of film noir had been taking this approach up until this time so the techniques were well-known and easily implemented. That being said however, the writer and directors decided to jettison all notions of a shapeshifting infiltrator from their script and reduced the story to a simple alien invasion premise.

In this version, the scene is set in Alaska, and the scientists are combined with some US Air Force flyboys. Tracking a magnetic anomaly in the district that’s throwing off compass readings, the group discovers what they initially think is a large meteor – it is in fact a UFO or flying saucer. They try to excavate it using thermite bombs but accidentally blow the whole thing to pieces: the only thing that they are able to recover is the body of a strange creature trapped nearby in the ice. This is entirely in line with what happens in the short story – the scientists, unable to identify the metal that the craft is made of, use too much thermite and set fire to the device, blowing it up and almost killing themselves at the same time.

Taking the ice-bound creature back to their base, they place a watch upon it whilst awaiting further instructions from military headquarters. Immediately the group fractures between the idealism of the science boffins led by Dr Carrington and the harsh practicalities of the military types. Inevitably the Thing defrosts and escapes, and it becomes a scenario of Communicate or Kill, with both sides of the equation seeking to outmanoeuvre each other in attaining their goals.

Given its 1950s roots, the ‘good guys’ in the tale inevitably turn out to be the military faction. They are all rough and ready, down-to-earth types while the scientists all come off as a bit fey and unconnected to reality. Dialogue, as is typical of this era, is quick-fire, dense and often muttered so it’s tricky to follow in places if you’re not used to the style. All the men are tough and bloke-y while the women – there are some in this version – are suitably compliant, according to the mores of the time.

The Thing’s motivation is a vampiric one – it wants blood in order to reproduce, which it does by budding like a plant. The scientists sneakily take some cuttings and propagate some seedlings but are quickly shut down by the flyboys. The group barricades itself inside, away from the horror, and devise a plan to kill it if it should enter. It does; they do; everyone cracks wry jokes and lights up their cigarettes: problem solved. For all the talk about aliens and their supposed “great wisdom” it’s all wrapped up with very little difficulty. There’s even time to foster a little romance along the way.

The film looks good and does what it sets out to do with little fanfare; it follows the plot of the story fairly didactically, although it dispenses entirely with what makes the original tale so thrilling – the paranoia and claustrophobia. There are many lingering shots of aeroplanes, and I can only assume that they were the contribution of producer/director Howard Hawks and are the main reason he gets a director credit. The movie was shot partly in Montana’s Glacier National Park and partly in a meat-packing plant in Los Angeles, so all of the scenes of ice and snow ring convincingly true.

CARPENTER, John (Dir.), “The Thing”, Universal Studios, 1982.

In this version, Carpenter puts back all of the essential elements of Campbell Jr.’s original work. The Thing is no longer just a rampaging monster to be casually electrocuted the moment it kicks down a door; here, it resumes its original conception as a shapeshifter and infiltrator. That being said though, Carpenter remains essentially faithful to the material created by Nyby and Hawks: there are constant callbacks to the first film – the title and its appearance melting into view on the screen; the explorers standing in a circle on the ice to plot the dimensions of the sunken alien craft; even the tough-guy attitude of the protagonists remains. For the most part however, he returns to the original story: we are in Antarctica once more and the familiar names – McReady, Blair, Copper, Garry - pepper the script.

The film begins with a long sequence of a helicopter chasing a dog across a wide expanse of snow. The dog runs into the Americans’ camp and the Norwegians aboard the chopper follow it, guns blazing, at which point the Yanks respond in kind, rescuing the animal and killing the Scandinavians. The dog of course is the Thing, on the loose having decimated the Norwegian settlement and its personnel. Once the dog has been welcomed inside, it’s all over bar the shouting (and screaming).

In this version, McReady is a pilot with a stupid hat, physically modelled on Campbell Jr.’s depiction, but free of the world-weariness and introspection of that prototype. He drinks heavily and takes risks and can’t tell the difference between Norwegians and Swedes. We are introduced to the other team members and their peccadilloes, and we see the tensions already in the group that will inevitably blossom forth once the Thing has had its way. Given its ‘80s roots, there’s some political incorrectness at play in the casting – the expedition cook here is black, in line with the fact that the cook was Chinese in the Nyby/Hawks film – but it’s not too egregious overall. There’s also the casual attitude to marijuana, which seems to be a hallmark of horror movies at this time (cf. Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist” in the same year). I was left wondering – in an environment where the largest wild creature you’d be likely to meet is either a penguin or a seal – why there were so many guns and so much alcohol lying around; but I figure, Yanks gotta Yank.

Of course, what this film is really known for is its special effects which were cutting edge at the time. There is no use of CGI here – everything is done practically and, even today, it stands up incredibly well. Much better than 2019’s “The Colour out of Space”, for instance. The scenes between the grotesque body-horror moments where everyone is trying to work out who has been affected by the creature and who hasn’t, are suitably tense and are a nice callback to the same moments in the original book. The ending is nicely equivocal too, which is quite classy.

VAN HEIJNINGEN, Matthijs (Dir.), “The Thing”, Morgan Creek Productions/Universal Pictures/Strike Entertainment, 2011.

This film, released in 2011, is posited as a prequel to the events depicted in Carpenter’s 1982 movie. It takes place almost entirely within the Norwegian camp that Kurt Russell and his cronies investigate in the earlier film and reveals where the creature came from – something that the 1951 movie shows but which Carpenter relegated to some found footage in his version. To this end, the makers of this movie spent a whole bunch of time making sure that what we see during this flick tracks more-or-less directly with what is seen in the Carpenter film. Thus, where McReady finds an axe stuck in a wall in the Norse camp, we get to see just how it came to be there. This is all fine, however it means that the film doesn’t really say anything new about the matter at hand.

Blokey-ness reigns supreme once more as we meet a bunch of slovenly Norwegian guys who drink and fart and tell filthy jokes to pass the time. Into this arrangement comes Mary Elisabeth Winstead’s character as a scientist, dropped off there by two American helicopter pilots, who are immediately forced to hang around due to the bad weather. The creature is found in the ice and taken indoors to be thawed out; it revives and goes on a rampage; yada, yada, yada. In an homage to the 1951 film, they also take the time to destroy the creature’s spacecraft with thermite charges, but deliberately this time: not by accident. With newer technologies – this time a blending of practical and CGI effects – the horror manifestations are less clunky and more seamless, but, as I said, there’s nothing really new to add to the mix. By the time the dog heads for the hills being pursued by two Norwegian guys in a helicopter, we know exactly what comes next.

This is a very well-made film and doesn’t really deserve the hate that seems to bubble up online every time it gets mentioned. It channels a bit of “Alien” and “The Predator” into its narrative mix but its only real weakness is that it doesn’t break any new ground. Fortunately, it doesn’t fall prey to the many tropes that Hollywood is prone to when it comes to sequels – ‘More is More’, or ‘The Maximising Card’, immediately spring to mind – and, in that it takes time to honour what has gone before, it stands up pretty well as far as I’m concerned. And it’s good to see some non-American actors strut their stuff for once.

(It’s interesting to note the difference in pronunciation between cultures here as well. Americans all tend to say “Ant-arctica” or “Ant-artica”, while others pronounce it “An-tarctica”. Wandering through these films really highlights the disparity!)

NUTTER, David (Dir.), “The X-Files Season One: Ice”, Ten Thirteen Productions/Twentieth Century Fox, 1993.

This episode kind of demands an inclusion in this list simply because it riffs off all the notions of the films and stories that went before it. It’s clear that the writers were deliberately channeling the source material – one of the characters who dies in the pre-credit sequence is even called “Campbell”, a clear invocation of the original author.

The story revolves around the discovery, in the Alaskan ice, of a species of alien worm that parasitizes its host, making them behave erratically in order to achieves the worm’s ultimate survival aims. Pinned down in claustrophobic proximity, the science geeks split from the government goons in a critical face-off, while a time-intensive cure is developed, and no-one knows who is infected and who isn’t. There’s even a pilot character who looks like Kurt Russell. Ultimately, the fate of the planet is resolved, and humanity is saved.

Personally, I don’t like this episode because it’s too deliberately arch and contrived. The actors have all obviously been told to dial up the drama, becoming shrill and unbearable, and in doing so, break character quite badly. Still, it pays direct homage to the source fiction as well as both previous film versions, incorporating some of the better elements from both of those iterations.

*****

This story and the themes it riffs off – paranoia, mistrust, isolation – are all good things to hang a “Call of Cthulhu” story from. In fact, there is a write up of the monster in the rule book. It’s possible to just replay one of these cinematic versions with your own team, or to set up the scenario in some other way. There are some things to keep in mind however.

The first is that these creatures are deadly – not that any “CoC” beasties aren’t – but just one of them will take a hideous toll on your group of regular players. You might wish to treat such a scenario as a one-off, with everyone rolling up some new characters. You should probably only try this with a set of experienced players as well, or a group who are quite comfortable gaming together. Issues of trust can extend further than just the imaginary world in which the action takes place.

It’s possible, as well, to play a scenario of this nature in “Live Action Roleplaying” mode, if you have a team that’s willing to dress up and go for it. There are extant gaming styles – such as “Werewolf”, where one player is a secret monster that needs to co-opt as many of the other players as possible without the non-monsters finding out – that can be adapted to this kind of story.

The other thing that needs consideration is setting. In the canon tales, the events take place in isolated and cold environments. Isolation is key for generating the kind of paranoia that makes this type of narrative work: having limited supplies and resources definitely ramps up the stakes. The other thing is that it gives the party a goal. If the monster gets free of the locale and makes its way to inhabited territory, then the fate of the world hangs in the balance – this should be the primary driving motivation for your heroes. I said “should be” but this isn’t always necessarily the case. In the canon, the inaccessibility of the Antarctic (or Alaskan) wastes forms an ideal environment; however, there’s no reason why you can’t set the story in a remote jungle, or a deep mine, or even underwater.

Temperature comes to mind too. All of these stories are set in the cold, but we’re told that the Things come from a hot planet: perhaps if they were in a climate more like their home world, they might be even nastier than they appear in these stories?

Technology is something to consider also. At the end of Campbell Jr.’s story, the Thing manages to build a nuclear fusion reactor, an alien hand weapon, and an anti-gravity jet pack out of some old soup tins and other odds-and-ends in just under a week. Taking the weapons capabilities of the Mi-Go or the Great Race of Yith as a guide, you can outfit your baddies with all kinds of nasty surprises!

Finally, there’s that telepathy. In order to work properly and to give your players some kind of advantage, you will need to think about how exactly it functions. In the rulebook, it’s listed as a skill which means that the creature must actively use the ability in order to gain information, noting that the skill level is 99% which makes it almost a fait accompli. You might wish to work it as a contested roll based on Intelligence instead, just to stop the Things from becoming virtually omniscient. The creatures’ ambient ability to ‘seed’ dreams is also a good way to feed vital clues about the situation to the party members if they seem to lose track of the scenario.

And that’s it. From the pages of early science fiction writing and the vaults of classic cinema, a solid gaming mainstay that can be brought to almost any type of horror roleplaying. Don’t forget your mittens!