As someone with a lot of time for Hooper, and as a fan of Ambrose Bierce, I was excited at the prospect of a Hooper directed adaptation of Bierce's story, "The Damned Thing" (a kind of American version of Guy de Maupassant's "The Horla"). The original story, though chilling, was a short and simple piece, so some broadening of the tale was always going to be necessary. Unfortunately this proves the undoing of the episode.
Inasmuch as he draws nothing but a one-note performance from Flanery and an inappropriately over-the-top one from Raimi, Hooper must share some of the blame for the failure of the piece. However, he achieves a sense of dread at the start that he doesn't let disperse. His hinting at greater terrors, also hearkens back to his "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" days, and overall I saw more to celebrate than criticise in his direction. The main flaw lies in Matheson's screenplay.
From a subtext point of view, Matheson is good. Tying the damned thing to oil exploration and so to the basis of American wealth and prosperity is clever, linking the evil of society to its very mainspring. However, his charting of the disintegration of Cloverdale leaves far too much to the imagination. One day there is bad weather and restlessness, the next it's the end of the world. There is too much of Flanery moping around with his whiskey, instead of small vignettes of growing madness (such as the hammer suicide).
Sheriff Reddle, for all his centrality in the story, is a truly wasted character, serving very little purpose. For instance for all his paranoia and remembrance of things past, he fails to respond when his wife uses practically the same warning phrases that his mother once used. Instead of preparing for the coming storm and protecting town and family, it seems his sole function is as catalyst for the unfolding of the exposition; a journalist tells him his family history; a doctor tells him about deaths; old newspapers tell him about the original oil drillings (adding very little to what we've learnt already); and at the outset he is the child who witnesses an earlier manifestation. All these things come to him, he himself doing very little. Then to sabotage what psychological realism there was, we have this apparently socially conscientious sheriff abandon the town to carnage while he drives his family home. Even if one charitably sees him as being possessed at this point, it's a pretty stupid course of action.
As I wrote, the original story was slender to begin with. However, this simplicity opened it out to all sorts of interpretation. This adaptation is strongest when it seizes on this ambiguity to make a reasonably clear ideological point. Ironically it is the telling itself that proves to be confused. Next time Matheson should keep it simple.
Inasmuch as he draws nothing but a one-note performance from Flanery and an inappropriately over-the-top one from Raimi, Hooper must share some of the blame for the failure of the piece. However, he achieves a sense of dread at the start that he doesn't let disperse. His hinting at greater terrors, also hearkens back to his "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" days, and overall I saw more to celebrate than criticise in his direction. The main flaw lies in Matheson's screenplay.
From a subtext point of view, Matheson is good. Tying the damned thing to oil exploration and so to the basis of American wealth and prosperity is clever, linking the evil of society to its very mainspring. However, his charting of the disintegration of Cloverdale leaves far too much to the imagination. One day there is bad weather and restlessness, the next it's the end of the world. There is too much of Flanery moping around with his whiskey, instead of small vignettes of growing madness (such as the hammer suicide).
Sheriff Reddle, for all his centrality in the story, is a truly wasted character, serving very little purpose. For instance for all his paranoia and remembrance of things past, he fails to respond when his wife uses practically the same warning phrases that his mother once used. Instead of preparing for the coming storm and protecting town and family, it seems his sole function is as catalyst for the unfolding of the exposition; a journalist tells him his family history; a doctor tells him about deaths; old newspapers tell him about the original oil drillings (adding very little to what we've learnt already); and at the outset he is the child who witnesses an earlier manifestation. All these things come to him, he himself doing very little. Then to sabotage what psychological realism there was, we have this apparently socially conscientious sheriff abandon the town to carnage while he drives his family home. Even if one charitably sees him as being possessed at this point, it's a pretty stupid course of action.
As I wrote, the original story was slender to begin with. However, this simplicity opened it out to all sorts of interpretation. This adaptation is strongest when it seizes on this ambiguity to make a reasonably clear ideological point. Ironically it is the telling itself that proves to be confused. Next time Matheson should keep it simple.
