: (Ennio Morricone/Various) One of several
adaptations of the 1938 novel "Who Goes There?" about the arrival of
extraterrestrial life in Antarctica, 1982's
stayed
relatively true to the original story while giving it a purely 1980's
horror edge. Cinema was taking every opportunity to show hideous
creatures emanating from humans at the time, and a large portion of the
budget for John Carpenter's movie was dedicated to the outrageously gory
and, in retrospect, somewhat silly creature effects that highlight the
whole affair. A research station in Antarctica is faced with the arrival
of an alien that essentially infects and consumes any living thing it
comes into contact with. Not only do the researchers battle this
evolving monster that can look like any of them (or their dogs, of
course), they have to contend with the elements and the realization that
torching the enemy is the only way to kill it. Most of the characters
must die in heinous fashion, naturally, and you're left with a final,
explosive confrontation between Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley that
leaves a nihilistic conclusion for audiences to ponder. (Brimley's
commercials for oatmeal in that era would have been so much more
interesting if he appeared in them while in the form he took for his
final scene in
. People would have taken diabetes far
more seriously, too.) The movie was only moderately successful at the
time, audiences not really interested in such a depressing narrative
when extraterrestrials were being shown in much more loving light in
concurrent films. But the film has become a cult favorite in the years
since, one of many from that period for Carpenter. It was also a rare
instance in which Carpenter did not write the music for his own project.
He had a much bigger budget than he was accustomed to for a movie, and
so he hired the composer he most admired at the time: Ennio Morricone.
The resulting collaboration has itself become something of a cult
favorite in the horror music genre, but the process of creating the
music was more of a mess than many people know.
Due to the language barrier between Carpenter and
Morricone, there was reportedly some miscommunication about the
direction sought for the music. Morricone wrote only conceptually to the
plot and not to any edit of the film, recording in Rome per usual. His
initial take on the story ended up espousing several Bernard Herrmann
techniques, possibly by coincidence. But that sound wasn't what
Carpenter really desired, and he balked at the orchestral nature of the
recording. He wanted a bigger version of his own score for
Escape
From New York and played that music for Morricone, who then recorded
alternate electronic takes on his existing major ideas, including the
now iconic main theme. Even after the composer recorded an hour of
music, both orchestral and synthetic, much of it was unused by Carpenter
in the final edit. Cues rejected from the film include "Shape,"
"Bestiality," "Eternity," and "Sterilization," and along with sections
of other cues dialed out, more than a third of the work was never heard
on screen. What did make the cut was liberally repeated in places, not
always making the most sense artistically. Additionally, the director
realized that none of Morricone's music really fit some of the scenes
for which he needed jump scares and other more traditional horror
techniques. That, and he needed music for the opening titles, which had
to be added late in the production process per guild rule. Carpenter and
collaborator Alan Howarth thus wrote four additional cues for these
scenes. The resulting "Main Title" cue has always been something of an
annoyance because it uses Carpenter and Howarth music despite showing
Morricone's credit prominently on screen. (At least their cue uses the
same ascending two-note formation as Morricone did in the rest of the
score, so it marginally fits.) The remaining additional cues are
atmospheric drones and stingers, the kind of pure muck that Morricone
didn't entertain. Not surprisingly, this material sounds exactly like
holdovers from
Escape From New York, and when learning of this
material, Morricone reportedly quipped, "Why did you call me if you want
to do it on your own?"
Ultimately, Morricone wrote a more sophisticated
version of a Carpenter score for
The Thing. Trying to understand
its strategy on screen is nearly impossible, though, especially when
comparing it to what you encounter on album. For instance, "Humanity
(Pt. 1)" is used for the final conversation in the movie but starts the
album arrangement, and the distinctive "Contamination" is only briefly
heard during the climactic confrontation with the monster. That said,
the music works reasonably well as inserted. The instrumentation on the
orchestral side was conventional with an organ, not the composer's
typical accents. The ensemble's sections take turns generating ambient
dread, desolation, desperation, and despair in almost every cue. The
most dynamic orchestral cue, "Despair," did make it into the picture
early. On the other side, the synthetic portion combines bass electric
guitar-like thumping with organ and outward synth tones. These passages
are highlighted in "Humanity (Pt. 2)" and the unused "Sterilization" and
"Eternity." With these two influences slammed together, the score has a
personality disorder because of the disparate sounds and lack of
narrative. Two themes exist in the work, both by Morricone, and they
share common rising pairs of notes that repeat endlessly as per usual
for the composer. The main theme for the alien monster's presence is
actually Morricone's electronic adaptation of his prior main theme for
the picture. Featuring the rising pairs with the famously thumping
bassline, this material doesn't actually feature often in separate
recordings because Carpenter simply tracked in the same cue over and
over again in the picture. It drives the rhythm for the descending
figures of "Eternity" without the two-note melody, but it is afforded
its famous performance in "Humanity (Pt. 2)" with organ and synths on
top, and the latter cue is what was tracked throughout the movie. The
massive explosion of fright later in the cue highlights the two-note
melody with a dose of genuine panic, and this passage sounds the most
like a Carpenter creation but with more flamboyant personality. When a
2011 prequel rolled around for this concept on the big screen, only this
thumping main theme survived in a token rendition within Marco
Beltrami's score.
Morricone's other theme in
The Thing was
initially his main identity before Carpenter redirected him. It remained
in the picture as an isolation theme because of its interpolation into
several cues, though. It drops the bassline but the rising pairs soldier
on over meandering secondary lines and harmonics, some of these
extensions of the motif offering a bit more warmth for the tragic human
element. This material punctuates a few scenes, including the final one,
with "Humanity (Pt. 1)," this long development quietly but effectively
summarizing the futility of the whole situation as well. Slowly
developed over piano pulses in "Solitude," a cue of thoughtful, lightly
menacing drama, that mode is furthered in the dull, restrained nerves of
the more dissonant "Wait." It's also hinted in the string agony of
"Despair." Morricone provided Carpenter with a handful of unique
recordings as well, including meandering ascending lines for flute and
piano over strings that crank up the suspense in "Shape" and madly
plucked strings in "Contamination" that are a nice touch, working up
from single string bass to unholy chaos from the broader string section.
The outward horror cue of "Bestiality" throws sharp, Herrmann-like
string and piano lines into the mix. The organ and synths dive into
nicely creepy descending lines in "Sterilization" while a slow crescendo
of intriguing symphonic layers builds until a moment of tonal
realization in "Despair." No album has ever combined all the original
recordings from both Morricone and Carpenter/Howarth. In 2011, though,
Howarth and Larry Hopkins reconstructed all of the music for the picture
into a re-recording on strictly synthesizers. It's a nicely handled
compilation, and even though the orchestral emulation isn't precise,
it's a decent imitation with modern sampling. Hearing modernized
versions of both his cues and the supplemental ones is nice, and the
resulting BSX Records album makes a good attempt to organize the cues in
a better narrative. That said, that presentation is still not perfect,
especially without the isolation theme repeated at the finale. Three of
Morricone's cues, including the rejected "Eternity" and "Bestiality" and
unused parts of "Despair," were recommended by the composer for
placement in Quentin Tarantino's
The Hateful Eight in 2015,
allowing them overdue life. Even so, the score for
The Thing
remains respected because of its effective and iconic main theme, a
standout in an otherwise middling combined effort overall.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Ennio Morricone reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.31
(in 16 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.3
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