If you haven’t seen the 1942 original, directed by Jacques Tourneur, I recommend it. It is generally held up as the acme of subtle, unseen but vividly-imagined horror.
Actually, that was a typo. Meant to say “such”. The film holds up to repeat viewing. Watched it recently and noticed that when Nauls comes back and say he cut MacReady loose because he thought he was a Thing that Palmer and Norris, who are both Things by that time, give each other puzzled looks like: “I didn’t do it, did you do it?”
I have those comics as well.
I find it amazing that Rob Bottin, the guy who did the special effects was only 22 when he started on the project.
Not long before the 1982 film came out, I cribbed the Starstream comic to write a radio play of “Who Goes There?” for college radio (Filterable Virus Theater on KUCI FM). I went to the Carpenter film expecting a remake of the Howard Hawks film and was thrilled to discover it was much closer to the original source.
Threads from just this decade:
I love the '82 Thing but realize just now that I haven’t seen it in ages. I gotta fix that quickly.
I don’t think I saw this up-thread, but Peter Watts (my favorite sci-fi author, wrote Blindspot and Echopraxia both of which I totally recommend) wrote a short story from the perspective of the Thing.
The Things (full short story for free)
The events of The Thing as well as other happenings are told from the perspective of the alien, a shape-shifting sentient biomass that can absorb and imitate other lifeforms. The alien thinks of itself as an “explorer, an ambassador, a missionary” of the biomass it consists of, the primary instinct of which is to “commune”, i.e. absorb and matriculate on a cellular level with other biologies. Confused, damaged, and unfamiliar with earthly fauna, the alien eventually learns the horrifying secret of man: I’m not going to spoil it
Just read The Things- I recommend it as highly as Carpenter’s film. Wow.
The screeching blood is what always freaks me out. Even when I know it’s coming!
I think one of the dudes says something like, “You gotta be fucking kidding me” when he sees it skittering out the room and it just cracked me up.
It’s just amazing to me that The Thing bombed and to listen to Roger Ebert talk smack about the movie. I seriously consider this to be a near perfect movie in that I really can’t think of many things that need to be improved. The acting is excellent, the characters are believeable, the monster is horrendous, and the story is just fantastic. I could talk about The Thing all day.
The Carpenter/Russell commentary on the DVD/Blu-ray is one of the best around. They’re obviously good friends who enjoy getting together to talk about the movie and their other projects. Kurt in particular is having a great time, he busts out into fits of laughter during the most intense SFX scenes.
And he’s a Thing too, which is even funnier.
Speak of the devil and who appears?
Now, I’m off to buy traps and post in a thread about busty, leatherclad ex nuns.
Why wasn’t this well received, initially? Alien was in '79 and that has such a similar vibe.
I don’t know and was surpised to hear it. I only escaped the uterine gulag in 75. You’ll need an older Doper to tell you what things were like in 79.
That may be why. Without the paranoia, it is just an Alien knockoff. That element may take longer than the length of the movie to sink in for some people. People watching it for the first time now are aware of its reputation and are looking for something beyond the visuals. Most people back then weren’t doing the mafia game style calculations that we do on repeated viewings.
My favorite line from that movie:
“I don’t know, but it’s weird and it’s pissed off!”
1982 was also the year E.T. was released. According to Wikipedia, they tried to market it like Alien with the tagline “The ultimate in alien terror.” Originally it was supposed to be “Man is the warmest place to hide.” Test audiences didn’t seem all that thrilled with it either though.
I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I’d rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
IIRC, the grotesque horror effects were pretty controversial and disturbing for the time. I think that was a problem for some folks, including Ebert. Funny how they’re much more acceptable now. Their ahead-of-their-time designs and concepts might be, in part, why it’s still so watchable today.
I’ve thought it was a great movie since I saw it on HBO shortly after its release. Of course, I was a teenage boy and the effects were just my speed. Just an INCREDIBLE monster/alien - I don’t think it’s been equaled.
Somewhere around here I have an old indie comic from the late 80’s/early 90’s that is all about the effects, drawings and creature concepts lifted directly from their pre-production notebooks. I wish I could find it - I can’t even find a picture of it online. A real gem for fans of the film.
Hehehe, maybe he’s talking to the other thing, basically saying “That will never work, you idiot!”
But really, that’s the thing about this movie that is brilliant, it’s so ambiguous, and so well executed.