Double Bill - Predator vs. The Thing: Invasion Of The Bloody Splatters

Double Bill - Predator vs. The Thing: Invasion Of The Bloody Splatters

It's always fun when aliens decide to pay Earth a visit. Well, maybe not always (I saw about half of Battleship before I decided to take the side of the alien species who didn't make the film) but it can be a lot of fun when it's done right. So I've picked two of the best films featuring, er, unfriendly aliens to make a killer double bill. And I'm promising right now not to use the term 'out of this world' from this point on. I also promised when I started doing this that I wouldn't do any really obvious Double Bills; well, sorry, but this one is only kind of obvious and too much fun not to go for.

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) and John McTiernan's Predator (1987) are two of the best examples of the horrific consequences of close encounters. Both take the idea of a hostile alien visitor and spin it into two genre pieces, with two very different aliens and contrasting leading men. Both are fine examples of 80s cinema, for better or worse, and hark back to a time when something as imaginative as an alien species could be rendered with minimal CGI and an emphasis on practical effects and make-up. As a consequence, these films have aged brilliantly.

Part of this lies in their settings. While they are both about aliens, The Thing's Arctic tundra and Predator's Central American jungle present the action in settings that are both recognisably Earthly but also unfamiliar and hostile. It's a minor point but the fact that all of the characters are clothed practically for their surroundings, rather than fashionably, has helped the films age so well. More important is the effect the settings have; characters are isolated, helpless and alone, and this is scary. There is also something more scary for the viewer in knowing that the action takes place in some frontier wilderness and not in their back yard (as in the less-successful Predator 2); as if hinting that this could have happened and you wouldn't even know about it.

Carpenter's film is a horror, crafted by an absolute master of the genre. He is wise enough to know that your gory money shots, of which there are plenty, will be more effective if they follow steady build up. So he sets about ratcheting up the tension with his camera creeping around crowded and claustrophobic corridors, the frame often filled with distracting detail to draw your eye to the corners where something might be lurking. The idea of paranoia is woven into the plot, too. Taking cues from the peerless Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1958), we never see the alien's true form, only its interpretation of whatever species it occupies. Anyone at any time could be the titular thing and this makes for a tense experience for audience and cast alike.

McTiernan follows his success with Die Hard by crafting another of the quintessential 80s action films. While Arnie's character is initially part of a team, this sits nicely with the 'one man army' ethos of Reaganite 80s action. The power of an individual, often but not always one of superhuman stature, can defeat any invading force (Die Hard, Rambo, Commando, and satirised so well in Robocop). Take, for example, the 'rescue' scene; a wonderfully over the top slaughter of faceless foreign enemies, establishing the collective force of the team. The team is then chipped away, leaving Schwarzenegger alone against the titular Predator, which has single-handedly annihilated his team.

The protagonists are an interesting mix: Schwarzenegger doing his fearless war machine thing, impossibly buff and bulletproof, his size and strength important in that they make the bigger, stronger Predator seem all the more insurmountable. And if he is the best Earth has to offer, what does that mean for the rest of us? Interestingly, it's his cunning and resourcefulness, his ability to use nature to his advantage that wins the day, not the size of his guns.

Kurt Russell's RJ MacReady is, by complete contrast, a human character caught up in an alien encounter. The Thing being a horror and not a gung-ho action film, the audience needs somebody to get behind, somebody to relate to, somebody grounded and ultimately, somebody who could be a shapeshifting alien at any time. Hard-drinking, jobbing pilot and cant-be-bothered-with-this-shit at first, he doesn't so much assume the role of leader, but that of man with flamethrower who works out what's going on. He's the only member of the ensemble cast with enough of a character drawn out to make you want him to survive. Russell's performance is brilliant; you like him, you want him to kill the alien, but you never at an point think of him as anything other than a normal guy. He's the Anti-Arnie; handy with a blowtorch but not about to take an alien on in a fistfight.

Both films use the group dynamic to great effect: you don't get bored of the same character the whole time; you get enough sense of conflict and camaraderie; and each given just enough character for you to be bothered when they die (a lost art, I think: the best example of a recent film to get this wrong is Prometheus. Remember how disappointed you were when Sean Harris was killed? No, me neither, but I bet you remember Gorman and Vasquez hugging a grenade in Aliens). Predator absolutely nails this, giving you almost no background, no development, but enough charisma and quirk to be bothered when Jesse Ventura is turned into mincemeat.

Ultimately, the films' similarities and contrasting viewpoints can be summed up in the endings. Victorious, Arnie (having just walked away from an apparent nuclear blast) is ferried back to civilization in “the choppa!”, leaving the jungle wilderness conquered. His victory is more complete, a ringing endorsement of military might and the power of one man over anything. Very Reaganite, very safe. Carpenter, however is a bit more cynical (this is the man who had a cute child shot in the chest during Assault On Precinct 13). Knowing that they a) have no means of escape, and b) can't risk the other being infected, therefore spreading it to the rest of humanity, MacReady and Keith Davis' character Childs, settle down to die with the remaining fires, their wilderness also set to be their tomb. Theirs is a hollow victory, and one not ever fully confirmed. It's entirely possible that the alien 'thing' will outlive the heroes and that, my friends, is how you do a dark ending.

Fantastic couple of films. Grab a beer, order a pizza and get ready to quote some out of this world dialogue...