"The Thing" was released in 1982 on a moderately large budget of U$15 million.
Universal Studios had been trying for a while to do a remake of the original 50s classic,
"The Thing From Another World".
Tobe Hooper had done some pre-production work on the project before he jumped ship
and John Carpenter came on board.
Carpenter was a huge fan of the 50's version, but he was aware that the original movie
didn't stay faithful to the original 1938 novel "Who Goes There?"
When the film was released he got completely overshadowed
by the success of ET which was also released by Universal.
It has been discussed many times over the years about its failure at the time.
Many movies that you just couldn't compete with ET.
Audiences were lapping it up and we're watching it week after week.
The movie didn't even receive any Oscar nominations, which is crazy considering
how amazing the effects were and also the quality of the production.
"The Thing" eventually got the attention it deserved
when it hit video and through the years it picked up more fans with the Laser Disc and DVD releases.
There are a few cast members you will recognize, but the most obvious will be
Kurt Russell, playing McReady, and Keith David playing Childs.
This was the third teamup of Russell and Carpenter, who worked together on the TV movie
"Elvis", and the year before on "Escape From New York".
What can I say about Kurt Russell? He's awesome in everything he does
and in this, he's first-rate.
Younger people will probably remember Keith David from "Something About Mary".
[Keith] Exactly what the hell is the situation here? Did you shit yourself or something?
[Ben Stiller] Oh, I wish. I got it stuck.
[Keith] You got what stuck?
[Ben] It! [Keith] Oh!
[Keith] It, umm...
The story starts with a mysterious comfrontation with a Norwegian helicopter
hunting an Alaskan Husky at the American Antarctic Research Station Outpost 31.
It leads to the helicopter being destroyed and the remaining crew member being killed by
Lieutenant Gary, the station commander
McReady and Dr. Copper fly to the Norwegian Camp in search of answers,
but find only a burned ruin of the body of a man who committed suicide and a large
block of ice with a hollowed cavity. Outside they discovered the burned
remains of the humanoid corpse with two faces.
Back at the station, their biologist Blair performs an autopsy on the creature
but only find a normal set of internal organs.
Clark kennels the husky with the station's other dogs,
where it begins to change and attacks them. The station crew gathers in the kennel
and Charles incinerate the creature with a flamethrower.
Blair's analysis leads him to believe the husky was infected with something capable of perfectly
imitating other life forms and he withdraws from the others.
Records from the Norwegian camp lead the team to a crater containing a flying saucer
and a hole left by the block of ice from which they suspect the creature came from.
Fuchs tells McReady that according to Blair's journal the creatures dead remains
are still active on a cellular level. Blair calculates that the alien escapes
to a civilized area, all life on Earth will be assimilated in three years.
Bennings is attacked by the creature but he is caught outside by the team
before his transformation is complete and McReady burns him before he can escape.
Gary realizes Blair was absent. McReady sees Blair run inside
and the team discovers he has destroyed all means of transport and killed the other sled dogs.
The team corners him as he destroys the radio and lock him in a toolshed.
As their trust in each other deteriorates, they discovered blood stores have been
sabotage preventing them from performing a blood serum test
recommended by the doctor.
McReady takes charge and orders Fuchs to continue Blair's work
but Fuchs disappears when the power goes out.
McReady, Windows and Nauls search for Fuchs outside they find a burnt body.
McReady and Nauls check McReady's shack,
but after finding a torn shirt with McReady's name on it
Nauls cuts McReady loose from the towline assuming he's been assimilated.
McReady breaks back into the station threatens the team with dynamite they attack him.
Norris suffers a heart attack and the doctor attempt to revive him.
However, Norris' chest gapes open and closes like a giant mouth, biting off the doctor's arms.
McReady incinerates the creature and orders Windows to tie everyone up for a new test,
killing Clark when he tries to resist.
McReady explains his theory that every piece of the alien is an individual organism
with his own survival instinct that will react defensively when threatened.
One by one, he tests everyone's blood with a heated piece of copper wire.
Palmer begins to change and attacks Windows forcing McReady to burn them both.
The visual and creature effects are the elements that are fondly remembered.
And rightly so.
The matte paintings are fantastic, provided by Alfred Hitchcock's go-to guy,
Albert Whitlock.
The most impressive painting I feel is a shot of Earth the beginning.
It looks photo-realistic. Albert discusses his work on the movie
in the original Laser Disc documentary:
We had to find a piece of high ground on the back lot
because I didn't like working from a tower--
Unnecessary, anyway, because the back lot of that tower is very plain and very hilly.
So we found a high spot, laid the sheets out and just placed the people in the appropriate position.
The vital issue in making the matchup work is having things standing in space.
If it doesn't look as though your actual painting is actually in space,
dimensionally in space, receding fromyou--
which doesn't necessarily simply mean the dissipation of color and tone--
That's simple.
It's still to get the feeling that it's there, standing in space.
You don't achieve that you don't achieve anything. Just looks like a painting, remains two-dimensional.
Rob Bottim, who had shown his talents on "The Howling", showed his enthusiasm for the project
to John Carpenter by coming up with many inventive and crazy ideas for the monster.
He spent months working on the production, never having a break and working 7 days a week
to achieve many of the shots in the film.
Stan Winston came in to provide some assistance in the dog transformation sequence
Rob Bottin was only in his early twenties.
It's amazing you achieve all this at such a young age.
It's still hold up extremely well today and CGI just can't compete.
They were going to have an extended battle with the beast at the end in stop-motion form,
but that was dropped.
There's one or two shots to stop motion in the film and it's not that effective
and I was glad the idea was left out.
Rob Bottin discusses the process of how they achieved a stomach biting sequence.
When we actually get to the scene, or the actual shot within the sequence where--
you know, Norris or Charlie, you know, he has a stomach open,
and it's actually going to bite down on the doctor's arms,
you know, what we did is, we came in on it on a shot where you would actually see
the mechanism open and we had, you know, the doctor actually put his arms in
and then start to close the machine and then we cut, and what we do is
we come to another angle, where we've actually replicated the doctor's arms perfectly,
making it out of jello.
We made the arms out of jello, we we had wax bones
built into the arms and we had rubber veins and gelatin things and all this
stuff so it was like, you know, living tissue and at this point what we did was
we actually took a mold of the actor's face that was playing the doctor
and what we did was we actually found a guy that had no arms,
his arms were actually cut off here, in an injury,
an industrial accident,
and a very very great guy, you know, this guy, and we basically made a
prosthetic that actually looked exactly like the doctor and glued on this person's face
and we glued the gelatin arms onto his arms.
So we have him in there and what happens is the stomach is actually hydraulic,
so it's made out of something that would be like, you know, same device that a tractor works with
to pick up, you know, a lot of, you know, weight.
And when this thing slams shut it actually rips right through the jello,
punctures the plastic things which sends blood flying all over the place and then
the actor with no arms pulls his arms out
and now he just got the prosthetic damage on
and blood shooting all over the place and that's a really good shot in the movie.
You know, that one was really tough to do and and very inventive,
very tough to do. I would even be scared to do that again.
The soundtrack by Ennio Morricone is instantly recognizable by any movie buff.
The main title music is very simple but effective.
It sounds like the composer is emulating John Carpenter.
The rest of the score works perfectly in creating acreepy atmosphere.
I don't think it's a soundtrack that works out well listen to it by itself,
but while watching the movie it does its job extremely well.
In 2002, a sequel to the movie was released in
videogame form for the original XBox, PlayStation 2 and PC.
The events in the game take place several days after the incident involving Kurt Russell.
As you can see it's a third person survival horror game.
It was received with many favorable reviews a time and they praised it for
creating a great atmosphere to the game and it was generally scary in places.
John Carpenter endorsed the game and supported it during this release.
There had been many discussions for years about a sequel and a possible remake.
Universal studios in 2011 went with the idea of creating a prequel.
It was about the events that took place of a Norwegian outpost.
I'm not going to go into great depth about the prequel, I personally thought
it was a very good film, my expectations were extremely low and I was pleasantly
surprised when I saw it.
It introduces new ideas and designs to the creature
Most of the cast is likable and it's well lit and directed with great care
It was a bit odd it had the same title as John Carpenter version.
Maybe they should have named it after the 50's classic.
"The Thing" is considered by many to be one of the best horror films out there.
I think it can take that title or be listed in the top 10.
I don't personally think the film is scary in a sense that leaves you feeling
spooked out or uneasy after viewing it.
It's a movie that relies heavily on gore to freak you out
and there's a great sense of paranoia and tension throughout.
I'm still baffled by how the fans reacted at the time.
They apparently hated it
John Carpenter stays faithful to the book and delivered something really special
and groundbreaking in terms of effects.
Maybe they felt it was to gory and disgusting and were put off.
There was one scene I found to be problematic:
Blair manages to build a new spaceship very quickly by stealing parts from the helicopter.
Now because the monster has immense strength and can probably sprout loads of arms to build it,
but I find it hard to believe there's anything from the helicopter that could
be used to create a space ship
That's the only problem I have with the script.
This is one of John Carpenter's personal favorite movies that he has produced,
and many consider it to be his best.
I've seen pretty much all of his movies and I personally think "Star Man"
most probably take that title of best film.
There are many great choices to choose from his catalogue of work.
I don't like to say which one is the best or single out one movie,
but in terms of performances and evidence that he's improved as a director,
"Star Man" evidently shows that. If you've never seen this film before i highly recommend it.
Obviously don't eat your dinner while watching it.
It's one of the movies on the 80s that really stands the test of time.
Even with the recent prequel, the effects in the 1982 version
clearly outshine it and shows how talented Rob Bottin and his team were.
You got to be fucking kidding!
[Kurt] I know I'm human,
so some of you are still human.
[Kurt] This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation
Whether we make it or not, we cannot let it freeze again.
If it takes us over,
then it has no more enemies,
nobody left to kill it.