The Thing (film)

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John Carpenter's The Thing
Directed by	John Carpenter
Produced by	David Foster Lawrence Turman
Written by	Novella: John W. Campbell, Jr. Screenplay: Bill Lancaster
Starring	Kurt Russell Keith David Wilford Brimley David Clennon Donald Moffat Thomas G. Waites Joel Polis Peter Maloney Charles Hallahan T.K. Carter Richard Dysart Richard Masur
Music by	Ennio Morricone John Carpenter (Uncredited)
Distributed by	MCA / Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	June 25, 1982
Running time	109 min.
Language	English
Budget	$10,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

This article is about the 1982 film. For other uses, see Thing.

John Carpenter's The Thing is a 1982 science fiction film directed by John Carpenter. Ostensibly a remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks film The Thing from Another World, Carpenter's film is actually more faithful to the novella that serves as both films' source material, "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr.. The musical score was by Ennio Morricone, a rare instance of Carpenter not scoring one of his own films. Carpenter considers this to be the first part of his Apocalypse Trilogy, followed by 1987's Prince of Darkness and 1995's In the Mouth of Madness.

[edit] Plot

The story takes place in Antarctica during the winter of 1982. America research station (Outpost #31) receives a surprise visit from two seemingly insane Norwegian team members from another scientific research station. From their helicopter, they attempt to shoot a Husky dog with a rifle, throwing grenades at it as well. The U.S. team members watch guardedly from their camp as the helicopter lands. As the Norwegians get out of the helicopter, one of them attempts to throw a grenade, but it slips out of his hand and is buried in the snow behind him; as he frantically digs through the snow for it, it explodes, destroying the helicopter and killing him. The other Norwegian (associate producer Larry Franco speaking a mixture of Scandinavian gibberish and genuine Norwegian strides into camp shooting at the dog, screaming ("Det der er ingen bikkje! Det er en slags TING": That is no dog. It's some sort of THING), wounding Bennings when he gets in the way. He is shot and killed by Garry. The dog remains calm amid all the activity, and seems to have found a friend in Clark, the dog handler at the U.S. camp.

Copper thinks the members of the Norwegian camp may have gone "stir crazy" and he persuades MacReady to fly him to the Norwegian camp. Upon arrival, they find the camp severely damaged. There they discover a frozen corpse of a man who seems to have slit his own wrists and throat. They also find numerous video tapes, papers and a portable video recorder, which they take. MacReady discovers a huge block of ice in the final storeroom; the center of the block of ice has been cut out, indicating the Norwegians found something buried in the ice and excavated it. Finding no trace of life, Copper and MacReady proceed outside and find a ghastly smoldering pile of what appear to be distorted and hideous human remains, hastily burned with kerosene.

They return to the camp with the strange remains and Blair is asked to start an autopsy. He finds what appears to be normal human internal organs. Later that night, Clark puts the Norwegian's dog into the kennel with the U.S. team's dogs. It enters the kennel cautiously, then lies down in the middle of the floor. After Clark leaves, the other dogs sense something strange about the newcomer and they begin barking ferociously. Suddenly, the Norwegian dog undergoes a shocking transformation; its head folds out into four parts, the skull dropping out onto the floor. It grows arachnid-like legs and sprouts long tentacles, and proceeds to attack the other dogs, continuing to transform itself into a hellish pile of flesh in the process.

MacReady hears the dogs wailing and pulls the fire alarm. The team races to the kennel. MacReady tells Childs to bring a flamethrower (the team has 2 flamethrowers on the base to melt the ice off the helicopter's rotary blades). Throwing open the kennel door, the team are horrified to discover a mutated dog creature. In the first of many shocking visual effects sequences, the dog monster has enveloped two of the four other dogs and is in the process of digesting them. Without wasting time, MacReady and Garry fire several rounds into the thing, but it appears to have little effect other than to make it scream and bellow. The team watch in horror as two enormous outstretched arms reach up to the ceiling, smash it open and hang from it. Childs arrives with the flamethrower and MacReady yells at him to burn the creature, just as its flesh splits apart, revealing another tentacle with a mouth-like structure (composed of dog tongues and teeth) hurtling towards them. Childs freezes in shock for a moment, but is able to discharge the flamethrower right before the mouth-tentacle reaches him.

Back in the lab, Blair examines the creature's remains and provides his hypothesis: "You see, what we're dealing with here is an organism that imitates other life forms, and it imitates them perfectly. When this thing attacked our dogs it tried to digest them...absorb them...and in the process shape its own self to look like them." The group now realizes that the creature possesses the ultimate camouflage; it is a perfect reproduction of its host, down to absorbing the host's memories.

The team watches the Norwegians' video tapes, and conclude that they found the remains of something massive buried in the ice. MacReady at once takes the helicopter to the site where he and Norris find a huge crater with an apparent alien spacecraft partially revealed. Norris estimates the ice it sits in is at least 100,000 years old. A short distance from the saucer, they find the spot where the Norwegians had carved out and removed the block of ice found at their camp.

Bringing back with them a small section of alien metal, MacReady starts to piece together the puzzle: "I dunno, thousands of years ago it crashes, and this thing gets thrown out, or crawls out, and ends up freezing in the ice." Blair keeps his thoughts to himself but he seems deeply troubled by the discovery.

The stress of living in the claustrophobic confines of the research station has pushed the men to their edge; now that one or more of them may be a Thing, the paranoia reaches almost unbearable levels. Blair uses computer analysis to determine a probability of 75% that one or more of the men may be reproductions. The analysis also provides the grim hypothesis that if the creature escapes the camp and reaches populated areas, the entire population of the world would be infected (absorbed) within 27,000 hours (just over 3 years). Blair becomes increasingly withdrawn and wary of the others, secretly carrying his revolver on himself at all times.

The remains from the Norwegian camp thaw out and the creature absorbs Bennings. Windows witnesses the incident and calls the other team members. The men follow what looks like Bennings escaping outside. When they catch up to him, he's grown two bizarre limbs in place of his arms and he emits an inhuman howl. They burn the creature alive, using a nearby drum of gasoline, and bury it in the snow using their plow (hoping that if by chance their thorough burning of the remains doesn't work, any residual cells will be too frozen to reform). They also determine that if the process had been completed, the creature would have looked and sounded exactly like their teammate.

Blair's findings about the Thing soon drive him mad, and he destroys the camp's vehicles and communications equipment in an apparent attempt to isolate them from the outside world and trap the Thing. Blair also kills the surviving two dogs, deeply affecting their caretaker, Clark. He even theatens to kill anyone who will stop him. After he is subdued he is locked into the toolshed to protect him and everyone else so that he cannot cause any more damage.

Dr. Copper devises an idea to detect the Thing through a blood test, by mixing samples of everyone's blood with old samples of the team's blood stored in the infirmary and then seeing if there is an immune system reaction, only to discover that the blood supplies have been destroyed. This causes more paranoia and distrust among the team: the lock to the blood cabinet was undamaged, so it must have been opened with a key which only Garry and Copper (when Garry gives it to him) have access too. Garry insists that any one of the other team members could have stolen the key from Garry or Copper, destroyed the blood samples, and then replaced the key back where they found it, but no one trusts Garry now. MacReady takes Garry's pistol (after Garry voluntarily gives it up along with his command), symbolically assuming a leadership position. MacReady orders Garry and Copper to be tied to furniture in the rec room and sedated, as well as Clark (whom Blair and now MacReady strongly suspect might be a Thing, because Clark admits he spent over an hour entirely alone with the original Dog-Thing the first night it was in camp). An Antarctic winter is setting in, making it perpetually dark. Worse, a long-lasting blizzard is setting in, the combined result being that it is nearly impossible to see anything when travelling outside the camp buildings, and that prolonged stays outside (even with winter clothing) will result in death from the cold.

Fuchs begins to read through Blair's notes, but finds nothing truly conclusive about the creature. The lights go out in his lab and someone passes by his door without acknowledging their identity. Fuchs follows the unidentified intruder outside and finds a pile of burnt material. In the pile is an article of clothing with MacReady's name stenciled on it.

MacReady notices that Fuchs is gone. He, Windows and Nauls go out to look for him and check on Blair. They find a burned corpse in the snow and a set of glasses that belonged to Fuchs. MacReady also notices that someone turned the lights on in his cabin and takes Nauls with him to investigate, while Windows goes back to the main building. Nauls finds a piece of burnt clothing with MacReady's name, hinting that he may be a Thing and Nauls cuts his lifeline, abandoning him in the cold. Nauls returns to the main building and shows the others the piece of clothing and tells them what he has done, only to soon hear MacReady banging on the door and demanding to be let back in from the lethal sub-zero cold outside. The team locks the door and braces it, convinced that MacReady must be a Thing. Windows worries that for whatever reason, they might be wrong and it's really MacReady on the other side of the door and they're forcing him to freeze to death, but Childs states that "then, we're wrong", not wishing to take any chances. However, MacReady makes his way back into the building by smashing a storage room window, and threatens the team with a bundle of TNT he procurred from inside.

The tension causes Norris to have a heart attack and he collapses. Dr. Copper attempts to revive him with a defibrillator unit. On the second attempt, Norris' chest opens and becomes a huge mouth with teeth, which clamp down and sever Copper's arms. Copper collapses and dies from blood loss and shock as the creature begins to emerge from Norris's body. MacReady sets the creature on fire but doesn't notice that Norris' head has taken on a life of its own and separates itself from the burning body and to the floor. The head uses its tongue as a lasso to move across the room and then sprouts legs and eye stalks, becoming a bizarre crab-like creature. The crew is astonished and horrified when they see the macabre beast escaping and torch it with the flamethrower.

Noting each and every individual part of Norris had an instinctive will to survive, MacReady theorizes that a Thing's blood would react against a hot length of wire, exposing its true nature. MacReady threatens everyone with his TNT and revolver into taking this test, though Childs protests, who still feels that MacReady must be an alien. MacReady aims his gun at Childs, stating he will kill him if he won't take the test, and after a moment Childs relents. While MacReady was distracted with Childs, Clark attempts to sneak up from behind and attack him with a surgical scalpel but MacReady shoots him in the head, killing him instantly. MacReady and Windows tie the group to chairs and slowly administers the tests, gradually untying the members who are still human. He tests the corpses of Dr. Copper and Clark, both of which were revealed not to have been replicated. However, Palmer's blood violently reacts to the heated wire and the creature, knowing it has been discovered starts to emerge from Palmer and kills Windows. MacReady burns it with the flamethrower and the creature crashes through a wall to escape. He throws a stick of TNT at it, blowing it apart. A few moments later Windows' body also begins to transform and MacReady burns it with a flamethrower.

Only four men remain - MacReady, Garry, Nauls, and Childs (though they are now sure that each of them is definitely human). The former three troop to Blair's cabin to administer the blood test, leaving Childs behind to guard the main encampment with the second flamethrower. They discover that Blair has been absorbed by the Thing, and that the creature has almost completed the construction of a new spacecraft with stolen pieces from the scavenged machinery. They blow up the craft and return to the encampment, and Nauls spies Childs staggering out into the snow, where he disappears from sight. The Thing destroys the camp's generator, and the three realize that the Thing is planning to return to its frozen state, waiting until a rescue team comes for the camp, when it can emerge and make its way to the mainland. They resolve to burn the camp down in order to kill the Thing, an act that means their own certain demise.

The three survivors incinerate the upper floors with dynamite and molotov cocktails, and head down to the generator room. The three split up to plant their charges, and the Thing-as-Blair reappears to kill Garry. Nauls goes to investigate and disappears; though we never see his end, we assume that an indistinct banging spells his doom. (The storyboard reveals that he was indeed killed).

The Thing finally reveals itself to attack MacReady, bursting through the floor, grabbing the detonator for the remaining charges and crushing it. Dubbed the "Blairmonster" by the filmmakers, the huge creature is a hideous sight, composed of Blair's upper body atop a giant snake-like tentacle, with insect-like arms protruding from its left side and a large, tooth-filled, dinosaur-like mouth protruding from the side of Blair's head. A dog-like creature bursts through the chest and snarls menacingly at MacReady. MacReady narrowly avoids being devoured and hurls a stick of dynamite at the creature, setting off a chain reaction that levels the encampment. MacReady settles down amongst the ruins of the camp to await his inevitable death by freezing with a bottle of J&B whisky. Childs reappears, claiming to have gotten lost in the storm after seeing Blair, and he and MacReady make an uneasy peace as the camp burns down around them. It is unknown at the end of the film whether either MacReady or Childs are infected, as John Carpenter and Kurt Russell confessed on the DVD's commentary.

[edit] Cast

There are no women in the cast. The only female presence in the film is the voice of the chess computer, voiced by Carpenter regular (and then-wife) Adrienne Barbeau.

[edit] Critical reception and themes

Upon its release, the film was lambasted by critics for its special make-up effects, created by Rob Bottin, which were seen as excessively bloody and repulsive 1. The film fared poorly at the box office, possibly due to the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial two weeks earlier, with its more optimistic view of alien visitation, as speculated by Carpenter and writers that have written about him such as Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell. Carpenter also said that the audience for horror movies had shrunk when questioned about the failure of The Thing in the book Prince of Darkness. Yet its reputation improved in the late nineties through home video releases, with the film even penetrating the IMDB Top 250 [1]. A collector's edition DVD was released in 1998.

This film is cited as the first installment in Carpenter's 'Apocalypse Trilogy', followed by 1987's Prince of Darkness and 1995's In the Mouth of Madness. The plots and characters of the films are not connected. The film is also notable in Carpenter's career for two reasons—it was his first foray into studio film-making and it was Carpenter's first film to be made without Debra Hill in a co-producing effort. The Thing was the fourth film shot with Dean Cundey as his cinematographer (following Halloween, The Fog and Escape From New York).

Though strictly unintentional, certain elements of the film (transmission of the alien organism through bodily fluids, the use of a blood test to detect the presence of disease, the inability to determine infection simply by sight) paralleled the first reports of a new disease, AIDS (both Carpenter and Kurt Russell acknowledge this connection on the DVD edition's commentary track.)

In 2004 another The Thing collector's edition DVD was released. The only differences between the two are an improved anamorphic transfer and removal of the isolated score from the 1999 release.

[edit] Possible sequel

Due to the unclear fates of the characters portrayed by Kurt Russell and Keith David, many fans of the film have hoped for a sequel. An alternative ending was originally shot showing MacReady rescued and a blood test proving he was human but it was done as a precaution and never used even for test screening and not part of John Carpenter's original vision for the film. Some still speculate about the content of a possible sequel and have even made their own fan scripts and fan fiction of their vision of how things might have turned out.

Other fans reject the idea of a sequel, believing it would ruin the first film, which to them should stand alone, as they see it to be a masterpiece. If one were made now, they continue, it would only be lacking and not do the first film any justice. Others feel the video game version is an adequate surrogate for a sequel.

Various rumors about a sequel have been placed in certain places on the Internet. All of them are false, according to Carpenter. One very lengthy script was discovered and thought to be an actual sequel script, due to the vast content and detail, but it turned out to be yet another fan script. A false article stated that Carpenter had written a script, a rumor he shot down.

The Sci-Fi Channel had announced it would be doing a four-hour mini-series sequel to the film in 2003. In Carpenter's reply regarding the false script rumor, he wrote he had heard about the mini-series as well and believed the project should proceed, but because of the lack of updates and the removal of all mention of it from the Sci-Fi Channel homepage, it is likely now abandoned, if it ever existed at all. Sci-Fi did however air the original made-for-TV movie Alien Hunter, which bears a remarkable resemblance to Carpenter's film, both plot-wise and stylistically.

In September of 2006, it was announced in Fangoria that Strike Entertainment, the production company behind Slither and the Dawn of the Dead remake, is combing Hollywood for a writer (or writers) to tackle a theatrical prequel to "The Thing.". ^[1]

[edit] Remake

According to Variety, Strike Entertainment and Universal Pictures (the companies behind the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead) are getting ready to remake The Thing. "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ronald D. Moore is set to write the script with Marc Abraham and Eric Newman producing. David Foster, producer of the original film, will also executive produce the remake. ^[2]

[edit] DVD releases

The Thing has been released on DVD twice by Universal. The first edition was a Universal Collector's Edition released in September of 1998. It contained the documentary The Thing: Terror Takes Shape on the making of The Thing, along with deleted scenes (shown in the television version), a theatrical trailer and production notes. The only thing lacking was an anamorphic widescreen transfer which was remedied with a new DVD release in October of 2004, which features a new anamorphic transfer with identical supplements to the 1998 release.

[edit] Other media

[edit] Video game

Main article: The Thing (video game)

In 2002, a video game was released, taking the form of a sequel to the film. The game — also titled The Thing — makes use of the elements of paranoia and mistrust intrinsic to the film, and was released on multiple platforms: PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. The game is horror-based with action elements. The game's trust-based mechanics, which allowed you to test your fellow team members for Thing-infection, were undermined by the game's insistence on automatically converting previously uninfected team members into Thing infectees at certain waypoints. This lent a feeling of pointlessness to the game's testing mechanic, as you could test somebody, find out that they're clean, and then see them erupt into a Thing as soon as you walked through an invisible waypoint. Some retailers, such as GameStop offered a free copy of the 1998 DVD release as an incentive for reserving the game.

[edit] Books and comics

There was a novelization by Alan Dean Foster published in 1982. It was based on the second draft of the screenplay. It includes the sequence in which MacReady, Bennings, and Childs are forced to chase after some infected dogs who escaped onto the Antarctic tundra.

Dark Horse Comics published three comic book sequels to the film, featuring the character of MacReady as the lone survivor of Outpost #31. The series was renamed "The Thing from Another World" (the 1951 Howard Hawks original film title) in order to avoid confusion (and possible legal conflict) with Marvel Comics' orange rock skinned Fantastic Four member also known as The Thing.

The 2003 comic book Venom, about Marvel Comics' popular anti-hero, was partially based on The Thing. In the comic, U.S. communications specialist Patricia Robertson is stationed at a radar station in Canada near the Arctic Circle. During a routine supply run to an outpost owned by the Ararat Corporation, she stumbled upon a grisly scene: everyone at the installation was dead except for one lone scientist locked in the freezer. It is later revealed in the series that a clone of the Venom symbiote was created and released in the outpost. The last surviving scientist at the outpost exhibits extreme distrust toward his colleagues inside the compound after the symbiote kills most of them, another recognizable influence by the Thing. The alien symbiote has powers similar to The Thing, including the ability to possess people and animals and the ability to mutate the possessed at will, as well as a weakness to fire. One notable exception is that the symbiote does not spread to multiple hosts like the Thing (except for some cockroaches following a nuclear blast). Also, the symbiote uses the creatures it possesses not only as a host, but also a source of energy, consuming their life force and killing the host when it leaves the body.

[edit] References

1. ^ September 6: THE THING prequel on the way. Retrieved on 2006-09-08.
2. ^ Michael Fleming (2006-11-16). U preps for 'Thing' fling: Carpenter classic set for remake. Retrieved on 2006-11-17.

[edit] External links

• Outpost #31 - The ULTIMATE Fan Site & THING-FEST an annual big screen showing!
• The Thing at the Internet Movie Database
• thething.ca The world's largest The Thing memorabilia collection.
• The Thing at theofficialjohncarpenter.com
• The Thing: Between arrival and spontaneous emergence (The Thing and pulp-horror)
• Review of The Thing video game at Something Awful