Episode 3
Experiencing John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece "The Thing" for the first time
Convinced by Ethan's love of horror films, Sarah finally watches John Carpenter's classic "The Thing" (1982) for the first time. As an iconic movie in the genre there's a lot to unpack, from strong characterizations to the timeless monster designs. Can Sarah and Ethan answer long-standing questions: does a thing remain at the end of the movie? Is that alcohol or oil in that bottle? Did Blair get a chance to use that noose?
Content Warning: Fictional violence, gore, fictional violence against animals, strong language, references to alcohol and recreational drugs, and mention of suicide.
Attributions
Intro Theme: Game Boy | Written by Andrew Stanton | Produced and Performed by Ender
Outro Theme: Faxel-Hecked | Written and Performed by Matteo Galesi
Featured Music Snippets
Halloween Theme - Main Title (1979) | Produced and Performed by John Carpenter
The Thing - Main Theme (1982) | Composed by Ennio Morricone | Produced and Performed by John Carpenter
Transcript
Hey, Sarah, did you watch The Thing yet?
Sarah:Oh, do you mean John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece, "The Thing"? The Thing?
Ethan:Yeah, exactly. The Thing.
Sarah:Oh, yeah, I watched that a few days ago.
Ethan:One of the best horror films of all time.
Sarah:So I've heard.
Ethan:Well, you can't leave me in suspense. What did you think? What did you think of John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece, "The Thing"?
Sarah:That is a... You just like saying that.
Ethan:Well, I had to be specific because there's also a 2011 film called "The Thing". Which is a prequel to the 1982 "The Thing".
Sarah:Also by John Carpenter?
Ethan:No, the 2011 movie is by other directors whose names I don't remember. It's fine. It's okay.
Sarah:Apparently, because you have only ever told me things about The Thing and just kind of barely mentioned that other thing.
Ethan:Yeah. I mean, uh, if you liked John Carpenter's 1982 Masterpiece "The Thing", then I wouldn't, you know, I'd recommend at some point maybe trying out the 2011 one, like, just for fun. We could do an episode on that at some point and talk about... If it was worth it, you know what I mean? How it, how it compares. I don't think it's a terrible movie or anything.
Sarah:Sure, I mean, doing episodes is probably the only way you'll get me to watch horror movies otherwise, so...
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Uh, but no, I actually really liked The Thing. It didn't unsettle me in ways that, uh, other horror movies do, which was nice.
Ethan:That's, I, I find that really interesting, actually. I think it's, I would rate the thing probably on the scarier end of that I really like. I'm a big horror movie guy, but I don't, I don't actually think that a lot of the horror movies that I really, really like are that scary. Like, my favorite movie of all time is Scream, but I don't think Scream is a scary movie.
Sarah:I would agree. Although there was that, um, parody called Scary Movie.
Ethan:Fun fact, the original title for Scream was going to be Scary Movie.
Sarah:Well, that would have been false advertising. Uh, but no, so with The Thing, I, like The Thing is freaky. But maybe it's just the 80s -ness of it. The cheesy sound effects. made it, uh, cozy, comfy, if you will.
Ethan:It is sort of a cozy movie, weirdly. I mean, it's a very sort of limited set, like it's not quite a bottle movie because you see various parts of the compound and at one point the characters go to the Norwegian base, so it's not like all single location, but it's, it's a fairly small compound and a lot of what you're seeing is just sort of these character living spaces. Like there are scenes in, you know, the lab and like stuff like that, but it is almost like a Home Invasion movie in that way.
Sarah:I can see that, yeah. One of the things I noted, because I'm the kind of person who takes notes during movies like this, is that it has a lot to do with, like, recreation and downtime.
Ethan:Mm hmm.
Sarah:In the scenes that it's, uh, setting up before the thing comes and wrecks everything. And I think you get that sense of this place is lived in.
Ethan:I agree. And we should probably pause real quick, uh, to explain to anyone who's not familiar with The Thing, kind of the, the core storyline and concepts. If you have not seen the thing, specifically the 1982 version, of all, just stop listening to this and go watch it because it's very good,
Sarah:but also come back when you're done.
Ethan:Yes. But the basic premise of the thing is that you are following a group of American researchers and researchers. At a base in Antarctica, Antarctica, who are being sort of attacked by an alien being that has the ability to shapeshift essentially. So it can become anyone at this research base. So most of the tension and drama in the movie revolves around the breakdown of trust in this very, like, isolated, closed off little research compound in Antarctica as everyone starts to doubt whether, you know, their compatriots are human or have been taken over by this alien.
Sarah:Right. It can make a perfect copy of that person, but it has to absorb them. Or creature. It doesn't have to be a human.
Ethan:Right.
Sarah:So you don't even get the comfort of your friend could still be walking around somewhere and you're just faced with the, the copy of them, but no, it's they're gone if they have been consumed.
Ethan:Yeah. And I love, I love how much goes unanswered in this movie. Like, it's, with I think one or two exceptions, you don't see a person becoming a thing. Like, the Bennings thing, I think, is really the only time you see it happening. Otherwise, you just, you don't know. Uh, by the end of the movie, you know mostly who has become a thing, but you never know when, you don't know at what point these characters are getting absorbed. It's also a plot point that, you know, we have no way of knowing what the experience of being taken over by the thing is. Like, characters at one point wonder, if I were this alien, would I even know it?
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:Which is not a thing that we ever get a definitive answer to. I think you can probably infer from certain scenes in the movie a lot of this stuff. Uh, but... There's no, like, solid answer to, like, when did X character become the thing? Or, you know, what is it like to be in the thing's consciousness? You know, do you think that you're normal until, like, the thing in your subconscious like flips on and goes, uh, this is my time to do something. I'm gonna take over now.
Sarah:it does. It comes across as that being. a possibility of what's going on, but the, I would say the brutal nature of the thing and the way we see it with the dog in the beginning and the bodies they found, it seems like it just, just eats you and there's nothing left.
Ethan:Yeah, that's what I think too. The, the character who, if I, if memory serves, I meant to re watch before recording and I didn't get around to it. So it's been like a year or two since I've watched it. Which is a long time for me, I love this movie and I watch it a lot. Uh, but if I recall correctly, the, the character who brings up would I know if I'd been infected, so to speak, with the thing, uh, I believe is Blair, Wilford Brimley's character, who does ultimately get thinged, uh, but he's also the character that I, that I think provides the strongest evidence that the thing just eats you and takes over completely and there's no part of you left. Blair is the character who, like, wrecks a bunch of their equipment, because he realizes that the thing can spread and, like, assimilate all of humankind if it is allowed to leave the Arctic.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:And he gets locked in a shed in isolation from everyone else. Uh, after he does that, and there is a scene later that is one of my favorite scenes.
Ethan:I, it's very simple, but for some reason, it has always stuck with me as one of the scariest visuals in the movie. I think it's like darkly funny also, but yeah, Mac, uh, the main character played by Kurt Russell, goes to visit Blair in the shed and he opens the little sliding window slot thing on the door, um, so that he can see inside to talk to Blair. And you just see Wilford Brimley sitting at a table and a noose hanging from the ceiling.
Ethan:And Wilford Brimley just very calmly says, "I'd like to come back inside now."
Sarah:I'm better now. He says he's better now.
Sarah:I have, I have thoughts surrounding that scene and a broader theory.
Ethan:Yeah. Go for it.
Sarah:So while Dr. Blair was himself, before he got "thinged", if you will, he was a very, uh, sympathetic character. He showed a lot. Um, like emotional intelligence and wanted to do the right thing and cared about other people. But I think the thing being able to perfectly take people over as a copy of them can utilize that and maybe misunderstood how other humans emotions work because Mac I think is much more practical
Ethan:hmm.
Sarah:And the thing wanted to appeal to sympathy and emotion with a noose as a suicide threat.
Sarah:That's my thought.
Ethan:Oh, I have a different read. My my theory is that all of Blair's breakdown and everything is 100 percent Blair, and that Blair is then put out in the shed. And while he's unattended in the shed, he decides that killing himself is the only way to ensure that he doesn't get thinged, and that before he has a chance to do so, he gets thinged. So he has the noose set up because he's about to kill himself and then he gets taken over and it's like, well, obviously I'm not going to kill myself now because I'm a thing.
Sarah:Yep.
Ethan:And that's about when Mac shows up.
Sarah:that, that was another thought I had. And is there any evidence that the thing can't take over a dead body?
Ethan:I don't believe that there's evidence of that. There's the, there's the thing immediately before they find the Bennings thing. And again, this is where I should have rewatched, because I don't remember if the partially digested body that they find is Benning's or somebody else,
Sarah:in the beginning?
Ethan:But there is that towards the beginning.
Sarah:Yeah, they brought one from the Norwegian camp.
Ethan:No, not that one.
Sarah:Oh, okay.
Ethan:Um, there's one, there's like a body that they find that's all goopy and bloody and it's got some like thing bits on it, and then shortly after that they go, they're called outside and Benning, the Bennings thing is in the snow on its knees and they set it on fire.
Sarah:Hmm.
Ethan:If I'm remembering correctly. Um, that's also, I think, one of my favorite scenes. Uh, but we should come back to that in a minute. We were talking about characterization and, uh, Blair specifically.
Sarah:Well, to finish that thought, I'm, I'm wondering if the thing, if Blair even did get a chance to kill himself and then the thing just was like, oh, cool, free body.
Ethan:Uh, that's entirely possible as well. Yeah. I think the character work in this movie is very, like, understated but effective. Something that I really like about this film is how external the threat is. Like, uh, I guess what I mean is, there's basically no character development for anyone. Like, everyone pretty much is who they are at the end.
Ethan:Well, most people aren't who they are at the end anymore, and that's kind of the point.
Ethan:But, you know what I mean. Like, our main character is Macready. And, like, Macready doesn't have an arc. Macready is Macready the whole movie.
Ethan:And, that's fine. Like, it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like these are poorly developed characters, because he doesn't change and grow, he's just, cause he feels like a relatively realistic dude.
Ethan:Like, he's just a guy, and he just stays a guy the whole movie. And so does everyone else. And there's also no, no, one has a backstory in the thing, right? Like, I think maybe they allude to Gary having a, like, a past where he maybe shot someone before killing the Norwegian in the beginning. I feel like Palmer, like, kind of makes a remark about that or something at some point.
Ethan:But there's no, like, you know, it's not like... Mac, she survived a helicopter crash six years ago, and like, blah blah blah, and it informs the decisions he's making now. Or like, Clark is, you know, loves the dog so much because of X and Y from his backstory. It's just like, no, these are just guys. These are all just normal dudes.
Sarah:Mm hmm.
Ethan:Who have relatively unremarkable pasts and are dealing with a really wild situation.
Sarah:You would almost expect there to be some ties to the military with Mac.
Ethan:Mm hmm.
Sarah:but there's not. He, he's not action hero dude. He's just a guy with a flamethrower trying to hold things together poorly. He made some dumb ass decisions. I'm like, oh, but I would like to point out a fun characterization for Mac is during the opening sequences when the, uh, Norwegians show up and the dog has arrived.
Sarah:He does not let go of his liquor bottle up until the point where he gives it to Bennings, who has been shot. The entire time he's got his liquor bottle.
Ethan:I love, I love Mac's first scene. Um, this is, this is I think one of the benefits of there like not really being character growth throughout the movie. Basically every character's first scene tells you what you need to know about that character. And I think Mac is the most effective at that.
Ethan:The very first thing we see of Mac is he's playing, like, computer chess. And he loses. And he throws his whiskey, or whatever it is, into the computer and breaks it. And calls it a cheating bitch. And it's perfect. It perfectly encapsulates what you need to know about Mac for the rest of the movie.
Ethan:Which is that Mac would rather destroy the game than lose.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:Like, keep in mind, like, they're on this base for, it's not like they're leaving any time soon, and he doesn't know that all this crazy shit's about to happen.
Ethan:So he has like this one piece of entertainment in the, the computer, chess computer, and he just breaks it cause he gets pissed off, cause he lost. And like, that's Mac to a T.
Ethan:When they lock him out of the base later in the movie, he comes back and says, I'm going to blow the shit out of all of you unless you let me back in.
Ethan:At the end of the film, in the climax, he again is like, I'd rather blow up this whole goddamn base than let the thing, you know, beat us or whatever.
Ethan:Like, that is Mac's whole character distilled to one very simple scene when you first meet him.
Sarah:I had some additional thoughts around that, because while he's playing that chess game, he is first confident and cocky that he has the computer beat, and then he doesn't. And that chess game as his form of entertainment shows a degree of strategizing. You know, it's a tactical game. You have to think ahead a little bit.
Sarah:And he does act as a leader in some capacity, uh, just as being competent. But I think he is cocky and reckless and impulsive and just has the, has the guts and the drive, but doesn't stop long enough to think.
Ethan:For sure. I agree completely.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:He's a good, he's a very 80s character in that way. Like,
Sarah:just Kurt Russell.
Ethan:Yeah, like. And Russell plays that kind of character in, like, other John Carpenter movies. Like, if you watch, like, "Big Trouble in Little China", you know, he's that same kind of, like, reckless, not necessarily, like, the smartest, but he's got chutzpah, right?
Ethan:Like,
Sarah:Yeah. I just want to point out when, when he's trying to determine who is the thing, he has come up with this great idea to draw blood and draw out the thing by harming the blood basically with a heated copper wire. And in doing so, he decides to tie up everyone so that when the thing comes out they're tied up. Except he ties them up in a chain together, sitting on chairs, so that
Ethan:not chairs,
Sarah:a thing, yeah, yeah, couch, and I think there's, yeah,
Ethan:Leads to one of the best line reads of the movie.
Sarah:and, oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about, but,
Ethan:Yeah,
Sarah:but, okay, so what you're doing is when a thing does show itself in one of these people, everyone knows Everyone is now tied to the thing.
Ethan:Right.
Sarah:What are you doing?
Ethan:Yeah, especially when your method of killing the thing is setting it on fire
Sarah:Yes, he has a flamethrower. He's trying to fire it while they're all tied together.
Ethan:Um, there's a very funny, this movie, again, came out in 1982, so it was Way before this would have been like a joke that you could make. It's just a weirdly, um, it's just really funny to look back at it as a gag today. In that scene, the blood test scene, the two people who end up the, the two people who are, who test human are Mac and Windows, and then the next person they test is Palmer, who is the thing. And, of course, Palmer then attacks them, and, uh, Windows freezes at a critical moment and is killed.
Sarah:Oh man, I did not even think about that.
Ethan:Right? Like, it's, again, like, it's, it's way before that could have possibly been intentional, but it's very funny in retrospect.
Sarah:Yeah, that's great.
Ethan:Uh, yeah. I, the blood test scene is like an all time classic horror scene, though. It's so good.
Sarah:Yeah, I didn't realize that. So the, the friend I had with me who was, uh, also watching it, her name is also Sara. And she loves horror movies, but she had never properly watched the thing. I think she caught snippets of it or the prequel. But when we got to that scene afterwards, she's like, "Oh yeah, I saw that in South Park."
Sarah:There's a parody of it.
Ethan:That's funny. Yeah. It's, it's so good. Uh, I love the blood test scene. It's a nice... Like, it's a good looking practical effect when the blood pops up and stuff. Um, it does have... Some, uh, logical issues, but you know, they're all under a lot of stress. I think we can forgive Mac is not super good planning.
Ethan:Um, and, and it does also have, I, I just said like, "Oh, it's got great practical effects with the blood." Uh, Palmer's transformation into a thing after the blood test is probably the worst practical effect of the movie though. Um, his like head sort of melting and splitting apart, like. Does not, has not aged super well in comparison to a lot of the other effects that I think still look pretty good.
Sarah:Yeah, they do.
Ethan:Yeah. But yeah, I, I think Blair and Mac are definitely two of the better characterized of the sort of ensemble cast. I mean, Palmer being like sort of the snarky asshole, uh, is pretty well characterized. Clark being just big and quiet and loving the dogs.
Sarah:Yeah, that was sad.
Ethan:Yeah, I, I love... It's very sad. I love that Clark gets killed by Mac. Like, I love that there is at least one just straight up, like, death by distrust that has, you know, neither of them are things.
Ethan:Um, yeah, I think that's important to the, like, themes of the movie that that be in there.
Sarah:Yep. And as an aside, watching this movie, my biggest complaint were the, the number of names. Because in reality, people refer to each other by both their first and last names and sometimes nicknames, right? Especially, you know, military or, I don't know, 80s bros, they might use each other's last names. But then they'll use their first names, or their nickname.
Sarah:And it was just, it's a pretty decent cast of people, some of them are pretty minor or short lived, but... I, uh, gosh, I, I just had a list of names with like little identifiers by them, and now I have their names up on my screen with pictures by them. So I know who you're talking about when you say it. It is a lot to take in on a first watch.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. It took me several watches to, like, really get everybody down. I still, I still slip up on Fuchs, Windows, and Bennings. Like, I always forget Bennings name, um, and then I usually get Fuchs and Windows confused in my head.
Sarah:Windows is very distinct to me because of his cool shades and his big hair.
Ethan:It's, the hair is what helps me remember. The reason I get Fuchs and Windows confused is because Fuchs has glasses, and Windows has the shades, and I forget which has which set of glasses. Um, but, yeah,
Sarah:Uh, another, uh, other Sara quote. She is Mexican, and she said "maybe this is just... Because I'm Mexican, but they all look the same." She was having trouble telling people apart, and it got me a couple times too.
Ethan:Yeah, it's a pretty similar looking cast, there's a couple people who stick out, like, uh, Gary, you can kind of tell because he's older, and clean shaven. Uh, and Norris is like, also clean shaven. But like, yeah, Fuchs, Bennings, Clark, Windows, like they're all just like middle aged white dudes with pretty similar facial hair.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:Doc and Blair look like a little bit alike as well. Um,
Sarah:they're both doctors.
Ethan:Right, exactly.
Sarah:Yeah,
Sarah:Dr. Cooper and Dr. Blair, and even a little bit of Vance Norris, look, only not so much Vance, but yeah, it's, they at least have distinct personalities.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. Okay. We've talked about some of the characters, but what about, what about the monsters? Cause obviously one of the big draws of this movie from like a horror perspective is the weird shit that the thing turns into.
Sarah:Yeah, I know I've heard you talk about the thing, and yet I still was surprised how quickly and how gratuitously we got to see the thing. It's not one of those movies where it is hiding 90 percent of the time. You get to see it very clearly in graphic detail. And um, throughout this, like, I swear it was minutes long as things were happening, I eventually said, "How does it keep getting worse?"
Sarah:I said that out loud as this monster was coming out of this poor, beautiful dog and just, it just kept going.
Ethan:The dog kennel scene is so fucked. Like,
Sarah:Mm
Ethan:It's, yeah, it does truly keep getting worse. I love, that's a moment that I wish I could, like, recapture.
Ethan:I, so the very first time I think I saw this movie, was like the edited for TV cut, like it was just on FX or something. And from what I remember, or I don't remember if this was actually the TV edit, or if I just. If I just stepped away from the TV for a little bit and came back, I remember the dog going into the pen, the thing dog. Which is a creepy ass dog, um, just, it's a very, it walks so slowly and deliberately and makes no noise and like stares straight ahead.
Ethan:It's a weird dog, which apparently was like, the dog was just like that. Like, it wasn't, they didn't have to, like, do anything to get it to act that way or anything like that. Like, it was just a weird dog.
Ethan:Um.
Sarah:Nice.
Ethan:But in my memory of the first time I watched it, the dog goes into the pen. And then you hear some stuff or whatever, you see like some of the like shadow stuff or something, but you never see, like, I don't think I saw its whole face split open the first time I watched this movie. And then the second time when I watched it like on DVD and sat and watched the whole thing, like, I was like, "Oh God,""
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:"I don't remember this. What the fuck?"
Sarah:And it's, it's got tendrils and it's shooting acid at another dog, which it was totally unnecessary. We didn't need that. They never use that again, as a, as a maneuver,
Ethan:It kind of does, uh, when it's the Norris thing.
Ethan:It gets the, the tendrils back out, and it sprays some goop. I just don't think it gets on anybody in that scene.
Sarah:Was that the head?
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:Okay.
Ethan:The, when it, um, when his, when his tummy turns into a big mouth.
Sarah:That!
Ethan:Like after, after it bites off Doc's hands, I think it gets some of the little whippy tendrils and sprays some goop.
Sarah:That was awful.
Ethan:That's my favorite, uh, thing monster though, is the head specifically. Norris's head ripping off and turning into a spider and crawling away. Fucking sucks. It's so gross and bad.
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, it is upsetting. They did a great job on on practical effects and on making things look gnarly.
Ethan:Um, which is a huge reason why it, uh, it bombed. It did really bad when it came out. And a lot of the negative reviews were about how gross it was. But it looks so good even now, you know, 40 years later.
Sarah:That's the benefit of not using a whole bunch of CGI. You get to, you know, maintain the fidelity of those practical effects, which is awesome going back. 40, 40 years now, and, uh, it's still an enjoyable movie, even with the silly cheesy sound effects. It's like an episode of Xena in there.
Ethan:That's, that's the main issue I have with the 2011 movies, that it really over relies on CGI. Which is an extra shame because they had a lot of practical effects because it was made by people who really loved the 1982 version. And they wanted to stay true to that. And then during editing, the studio stepped in and said, "no overlay it all with CGI."
Ethan:And so you lose all this beautiful practical effect work that they did. I would love to see the original, you know, unmodified stuff and see how it holds up
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:Because you can tell, you can tell that the people who made it cared about the original film. It's. You know, I mentioned it's a prequel. It tells the story of what happened at the Norwegian camp.
Sarah:That's interesting because I feel like we already know what happened at the Norwegian camp.
Ethan:Oh, yeah.
Sarah:To me, the movie was like a cycle. They get to the Norwegian camp and they're like, "what happened here?" And then they go back to their camp and we see what happened there in graphic detail, which I, I think it's interesting that they chose that.
Sarah:I assume the prequel will be further back.
Ethan:Hmm. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Like it's a, it's a completely unnecessary movie because like you said, like, we basically know what happened. It doesn't play out all that differently, but it is fun as like a big fan of the original to be like, Oh, Hey, like this is how the weird gross two faced monster happened. You know, this is, that's the dude that, uh, they find in the, the chair, that had committed suicide.
Sarah:Mm hmm.
Ethan:Like, all that kind of stuff is, like, fun to see. But yeah, it is very much, like you said, like, we, we basically know what happened. It's not a story that you need. It's not a story that does that much to enhance, uh, the original. But, it's fun, and it's got some weird gross thing monsters, it's just, again, I would've loved to have seen them practically instead of as weird CGI gloops that probably don't, they didn't look great at the time and they probably look a lot worse now that it's been a decade.
Sarah:Yeah, maybe we should petition to release the "practical effects cut".
Ethan:I would love that. The Thing has long been one of my favorite movies, and none of my other friends are big horror movie people, but I was so excited for there to be a new The Thing movie that I got all my buddies together and, uh, had us watch the 1982 version that none of them had seen before, and then go out and watch the 2011 one in theaters. It was, it was fun. It was fun to see people's, like, gut reactions to that movie, especially them being, like, not big horror fans. So, yeah.
Sarah:Oh yeah. Yeah.
Ethan:The dog scene, yeah. It's just, everybody was like, "what the fuck?"
Sarah:I, um, I forgot the severity of that scene because I've heard you talk about it. And, you know, my friend, she's cool with horror movies, but she also loves dogs and has lots of dogs, and I was like, oh, no. She was fine, though.
Ethan:Yeah, well, it's, and I think also a big part of it is just that it's from the 80s, and like, uh, I think I'm usually kind of surprised when an older movie takes a swing that big, because I just assumed that like, I don't know, like the nineties is where all the like excess of like gore and like all that kind of stuff happened.
Ethan:Um, I feel like. Especially 60s and 70s movies, I, like, in my head, I'm like, well, they'll be much more, like, chaste and restrained, right? Uh, I remember I watched Black Christmas, the 1971 slasher film, uh, last year for the first time. And I knew, like, okay, you know, this is, this is one of the first big, like, American, well, I think it's Canadian, actually, but, like, big slashers that's not, like, European. Because a lot of the American slasher stuff derives from, like, Italian giallo films and stuff like that.
Ethan:But, uh, at any rate, that's just, that's just me covering my ass for the people who are like, "uh, Black Christmas didn't kickstart the slasher genre" or whatever. Um, yeah, I fucking know.
Ethan:Um, but it's, it's a, uh, one of the more prominent examples of the genre, uh, before it really took off in the 80s. It's a fucking great movie. I, I really highly recommend Black Christmas. Um, that we're, I'm gonna make you watch that for this show at some point. Um, it's really good.
Ethan:But, uh, the, uh, the whole thing with Black Christmas is that it's a sorority house, And it's like Christmas break or whatever. And uh, this sorority house keeps getting these like threatening phone calls and then eventually someone starts killing people at the sorority house, right?
Ethan:So it's like a pretty, pretty standard slasher in that respect. But like it's, it was, I believe 1971, so early seventies. And the first one of these like threatening phone calls. Like, the first thing that the dude says when they pick up the phone is like, "I can smell your cunt." And I was like, "what the fuck? You can't say that in the 70s. What are you talking about?" Like, it really, like, bowled me over. I was like, I, whoa, this is so much more intense than I thought it would be.
Sarah:That, that is a creepy thing to say.
Ethan:It's a, right? It's like, it's like, that's... Gross and terrifying. Like, it's so far past, like, what I would have expected to happen in a movie. Like, I'd be sort of surprised to hear it now, but like, in a movie from 50 years ago, I was like, goddamn. Okay. Coming out of the gate swinging.
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, that's, uh, I have, I have some commentary on that, but I think that's a different, different topic. I think movies have, I wonder if they've gotten a little more sanitized since then, but.
Ethan:Yeah. I think in, I, I think in many ways they have, I think it's been a weird give and take.
Sarah:Mm hmm.
Ethan:Um, especially in the last. I don't know, 10 to 15 years or something. I feel like it's really started to kind of come back in the other direction. But agreed, yeah, neither here nor there. Um, my point with all of that was the Norris head is gross and scary and I love it.
Sarah:Yes. Well stated. Minus the affection for it. I lack that. But uh, it was, it was gross. I have another thought about the thing, which isn't related to its design so much as its origin.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:And I'm curious what you think. In, I thought the opening seconds were really bizarre because it shows a UFO crash landing on Earth.
Ethan:I hate that.
Sarah:I feel like it sets the wrong tone for the movie.
Ethan:I completely agree. I really wish that scene wasn't there. I wish it just started with the dog running on the snow.
Sarah:We, yeah, because later we find out that they've, the Norwegian team has excavated from the snow and ice, this UFO. And it looks a lot better there too, cause it's not crappy CGI.
Ethan:Right. Although the scene of them finding it is very clearly just them standing in front of a big painting.
Sarah:That's fair. And they worked with what they could.
Ethan:Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it's a beautiful painting.
Sarah:But someone at some point mentioned that the Norwegians had dug up a person or creature or thing from the ice away from the spaceship as if it had been trying to go somewhere or escape. And that got me thinking, what if this is a lot like what is happening now and some life form from another planet was trying to escape a planet that had been taken over by the thing and that thing ended up on their ship.
Ethan:Yeah, I think, I think that's entirely possible.
Sarah:It just, it sounds really depressing.
Ethan:Yeah, but it's, I mean, as far as we can tell, the thing's entire purpose is just like assimilation, right? Like, I guess we can't say that for sure, because we never see it get further than the base. From what we can surmise, It seems to just want to spread.
Sarah:Yep.
Ethan:So I think it's entirely possible that it makes a habit of doing exactly that. Just taking over other spacefaring, you know, races or whatever and just popping on their ships and going to the next place.
Sarah:Yeah. Creepy.
Ethan:A quick addendum by the way, uh, Black Christmas was 1974, not 1971. Also, it was, uh, directed by Bob Clark, who is most well known for "A Christmas Story." So that's fun.
Sarah:Are you what?
Ethan:Yep. Is
Sarah:That's a fun little factoid.
Ethan:the true fact. Yes. Uh, we'll have to watch that one in December. God, that's a great movie. Uh, but, uh, yeah. Um, yeah, I definitely think that's a strong possibility.
Sarah:I think it's yeah, I just thought it was slightly more interesting than the thing straight up piloting a UFO and finding a new planet.
Ethan:Yeah. What? Are your feelings about the ending of this movie?
Ethan:Oh, sorry, real quick. I want to backtrack. I talked about the Norris head. Uh, the other, the other thing -ification, that I'm extremely fond of is, uh, the Bennings thing. Which is the one that they find when it's not done turning into Bennings yet.
Ethan:And there's the great extra, like, again, I think one of the scariest scenes for me, I don't know why, but like, the, Blair noose scene always freaks me out and the Benning scene always freaks me out. Where he's just on his knees in the snow and they're all in a circle around him and he's just got his weird fucked up thing hand and he just opens his mouth and makes this weird like invasion of the body snatchers like kind of noise.
Sarah:Damn, that was good.
Ethan:Freaks me the fuck out every time
Sarah:Yeah, that was unpleasant. Is that also the scene where they use maybe all of their kerosene or whatever that is to burn him?
Sarah:I'm like, you guys, save some of that. Cause if let's say that was the last thing. And it was done. Are you gonna make it through the winter? This is the beginning of winter in Antarctica.
Sarah:That was a shit. They had multiple oil drums. And then some? I think they were just pouring out bottles of oil.
Ethan:But yes, the ending. What did you think of the ending? And what are your theories about the ending? Because the ending is, well, I wouldn't say the ending is divisive, but people have a multitude of theories about the ending.
Sarah:It's awfully ambiguous.
Ethan:Yes.
Sarah:Okay, so we see Mac survive. We've been with Mac the whole time, and we're like pretty sure he's not a thing because we just saw him destroy the ultimate thing.
Ethan:Which, just as an aside, because we talked about most of the other feature designs, I would say that's my biggest disappointment in the movie. I don't really like the design of the, the ultra thing at the end.
Sarah:Yeah, it was like weird dinosaur heads popping out of a body. Yeah.
Ethan:Yeah, pretty uninspired. Not, not nearly as interesting as a lot of the other ones.
Sarah:Yeah, if it ended with the first one, jeez, yeah. Uh, but yeah, the last time we saw Childs... one of the only other survivors at that point.
Ethan:Played by fucking Keith David, by the way. Love that guy.
Sarah:I have no idea who that is. Um, but yeah, we see him leave the compound.
Ethan:That hurts me.
Sarah:I'm sorry. He, he leaves the compound kind of discreetly and the other characters see him leave and then we don't see him until the very end when Mac has finished killing the thing. And here, here's my theory that I didn't actually see enough evidence to back it up.
Sarah:If that was alcohol that child's drank at the very end, I don't think he was a thing. Because when they found that first body from the Norwegian camp, the doctor mentioned at least once, maybe twice, back to back, that it had the clean blood, that it had no drugs or alcohol in its system. It was like a normal person, no drugs or alcohol in its system.
Sarah:And the thing doesn't like harmful things, right? Like it's blood being boiled. Or I would assume alcohol and drugs, which are technically detrimental to your body.
Ethan:That's a very good point.
Sarah:We see so much drug and alcohol use as recreation among a lot of the characters. And we see Mac give Blair a little bottle of Smirnoff before he locks him in the, in the shed.
Sarah:We never get to see if he drinks it or not, which was very disappointing.
Ethan:True.
Sarah:But I, I think the thing wouldn't consume alcohol.
Ethan:It'd be interesting. I need to rewatch it again. We see Palmer smoke several times. I'd be curious what the closest proximity, like the shortest time between Palmer smoking and confirmed Palmer is the thing.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:I'd be curious, cause I have a point in my head where it's like, surely Palmer must be the thing by this point. Um, and I'd be curious to see if he smokes after that point or not.
Ethan:Like, I think Palmer is definitely already the thing by the time the Norris thing happens. Or, like, shortly after that, maybe? Cause I feel like he... There's not a lot of time between that and the blood test.
Sarah:Yeah. Weird.
Ethan:And I, I've always suspected that the Norris thing... Because it seems so random, right? Norris apparently has a heart attack, and then just reveals his corpse, reveals itself as the thing, and kills Doc. And there's never another point where the thing, like, really does that? I mean, at the end, when it's down to Gary, Mac, and Nauls and they separate to go set the explosives, and
Sarah:Fucking idiots.
Ethan:it kills Gary and Nauls um, but like, it gathers everybody together by having Norris quote unquote "die", and then like, outright assaults them, which is like, not a tactic that it tries otherwise.
Sarah:Yeah, it's weird.
Ethan:Which makes me think that it's already Palmer, and it's doing, like, a gam a distraction gambit of like, "Ah, see, you found me, I was Norris, now you don't need to worry about the other people, everyone else is fine".
Sarah:That could be. It is odd, that choice that it made. Yeah.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:bizarre.
Ethan:I mean, there's also, again, like, we don't know a lot about it, so maybe, you know, maybe Norris's, like, maybe it took over Norris's body, and it was just a shitty body, and it died, like, or something, you know? Who knows. Um, I don't think that really bears out with, like, it detaching its own head and all that shit, but.
Sarah:Yeah, that was wild. If it can do that, you'd think it could zombie the body around for a while.
Ethan:Right.
Sarah:All that to say, I really want to believe that Childs is not a thing. But it totally seems like they want us to think it is a thing.
Ethan:Yeah, there's a, there's a theory. out there that the bottle that Mac hands him does not actually contain alcohol. That it was, like, filled with... Gasoline or something, because he was going to use it as, you know, like a Molotov, or something like that, and, uh, that he hands it to Childs, with the intent that if Childs drinks it and gives no indication that he just drank, like, gas. he's obviously a thing. Because a human would know, like, this isn't a thing that I drink, or whatever. I, I think that's a fun theory, but I don't think there's enough in the film to, like, back that up.
Sarah:Well, yeah, because especially in action movies, Molotovs are often alcohol.
Ethan:Right.
Sarah:So,
Ethan:And it just, as we discussed earlier, like, I don't know that Mac is thinking that far ahead.
Ethan:And for what it's worth, Carpenter has said, like, "I don't know", like, people have asked, like, well, which one is... The thing is, I don't know the thing. And he's like, "I don't know". That's the point.
Ethan:Like, you don't, you don't know. Maybe it's neither of them, maybe it's both of them, like, who can say? There have been some follow ups, like, there's, there's a video game sequel, and I think there was like a comic book sequel or something. And I think both of those have gone with, Mac was not the thing, Childs was the thing. Um, but again, I mean, those aren't written by the same people or anything, they have no, uh, creative crossover with people who made the 1982 film. So that doesn't mean anything.
Ethan:I, I think we can for sure say that Mac is not a thing at the time the credits roll, because as you said, like we literally just watched him blow up the thing and it's escape vehicle or whatever. So I, I certainly don't think he's a thing. I tend to think that Childs probably is. Um, but that the larger point is that it, it doesn't matter. They're both probably going to die there.
Sarah:Yeah, I mean, it's pretty hopeless they have no communication. They've destroyed all of their... Uh, resources for survival, and it's gonna be a long winter, and if one of them is the thing, then, well, that sucks.
Sarah:My, my cynical mind says, even if neither of them are the thing, I think the thing would have survived what happened, because they make it pretty clear that a single cell, or blood drop, or whatever, can pass it on, and it will take things over.
Ethan:Yeah, that's one of the, that's one of the big, um, things that people cite as like, why, that's one of the things people cite in support of the, it wasn't alcohol theory. Is that like, Mac is the guy who came up with the blood test, like, he knows that exposure to, like, any part of the thing risks turning you into a thing, so he would never purposely, like, share a bottle with Childs if he, you know, because he wouldn't want to get, like, Childs saliva or whatever. Which, like, we don't see him take a drink after Childs, um, I don't think. Um, but that's like, uh, that's a thing that people point to as like, possible evidence that he's... That it's not, uh, not alcohol. It's like, well, clearly, you know, if it were, he wouldn't really like share a drink with him because it would be too dangerous. And he knows that, so it must be something else.
Sarah:No. That dumbass was holding the petri dishes of blood and going like copper wire in here blood bouncing up. He didn't give a shit. No
Ethan:He also, they also don't find that blood. It just scurries off and he's just like, ah, shit.
Sarah:Yeah,
Ethan:I mean, they had to deal with Palmer, but, you know.
Sarah:like maybe it wasn't the intention of the movie. Maybe we can call it a plot hole I don't know, but that was my my one gripe is I'm like, oh, this is all hopeless 'cause there's no way they're going to completely decontaminate this. And maybe it's a suspension of disbelief that the explosion at the end covers that.
Ethan:Yeah, I think that's probably the intention. Is that like, well, everything's on fire. So it'll either burn or it'll just freeze. And at that point, it's like three drops of frozen blood that no one has any reason to like, you know, it's not like the, the alien corpse or whatever that they have reason to take to a research base and all that stuff.
Ethan:Um, it's worth noting, this is one of the films in what's referred to as John Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy. Uh, which are three unrelated films, uh, that are linked by... the theme of, like, the end of the world. So this movie is end of the world by, you know, consumption by the thing. The other two films in the trilogy are, uh, "Prince of Darkness", which is more of sort of a religious horror, Christian apocalypse type of end of the world.
Ethan:And, uh, In the "Mouth of Madness", which is sort of a... Like, weird, metafictional, kind of H.P. Lovecraft inspired, like, cosmic horror type of end of the world. And, um, yeah, we should talk about those at some point, too. I don't like Prince of Darkness, but I like In the Mouth of Madness.
Sarah:I like how these films get progressively more elaborate titles.
Ethan:Heh heh
Sarah:Yeah, that'd be, uh, cool to explore.
Ethan:Yeah, I, I, I would love, again, I don't like Prince of Darkness. I would love to talk about it on this podcast. Because it's fucking wild, and I would be so curious to hear your take on, like, the weird ass ideas that this movie presents.
Sarah:Yeah, that sounds worth it to me.
Sarah:You mentioned themes of the movie when we were talking about doing an episode and the apocalypse that you've mentioned driving that trilogy makes me think of like humanity over self. Everyone was paranoid and kind of selfish and wanted to survive, but ultimately between the Norwegians and the U.S. camp decided, well, we're just gonna lay down our lives to save humanity, basically, which I thought was unfortunate, but nice.
Ethan:Yeah, I agree.
Sarah:Like, Norwegians had a helicopter. They could have just left, but they didn't. Instead, they followed the thing.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:I think that says a lot.
Ethan:I agree. I also love, it's not subtitled or anything in the movie, but the Norwegian at the beginning is shouting the whole time when he lands at the base. And I don't, I don't speak Norwegian, but according to what I've read on the internet, he is legitimately speaking that language and is just laying out the entire plot of the movie.
Ethan:So if you happen to speak, like, Norwegian, He's just saying, like, "the dog is a monster. It turns into people and kills them." Like, he's just telling you the whole, the whole deal immediately in the first, like, five minutes of the movie.
Sarah:Oh, that's great. It also sounded like, and there's no reason for this in universe, but it also sounded like he was trying to say, like, an English phrase, "the thing". But with a Norwegian accent.
Sarah:Or I just imagined it. So I thought it was odd that they had an English phrase for it. Also, in looking at the character list, Norwegian number two was allegedly John Carpenter.
Ethan:Oh, that's interesting. That's got to be in, like, the photograph or one of the bodies at the base or something. Because we only see the one guy at the beginning, right?
Sarah:Uh, there's a couple. There's the pilot and the sniper.
Ethan:Oh, I guess there is. I guess there's two in the helicopter, isn't there?
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, there's at least two because there's Norwegian number one, number two, number three.
Ethan:I gotta rewatch this movie. It's been too long.
Sarah:I'm surprised you don't have it memorized scene by scene.
Ethan:I have a, I mean, I have a lot of it down, but I remember, right?
Ethan:There's the great, there's also the great, uh, we did, we did originally, we were. supposed to be talking about all of its thematic resonance, but it ended up just being an hour of me being like, "remember when the head came off? That was so fucking cool. Those dogs are scary."
Sarah:Well, I, I had very specific theories I wanted to tell you about, so.
Ethan:But the themes are obviously about, like, isolation, paranoia, lack of trust. I think it's interesting that this movie is ostensibly a remake of the 1951 film ""The Thing From Another World", which John Carpenter loved, uh, when he was younger.
Ethan:In "Halloween", the original 1978 Halloween, that's the movie that the children that Laurie Strode is babysitting, uh, are... Like watching on TV is the thing from another world.
Ethan:But, uh, in that movie, from what I, I haven't watched it, but from what I understand, the monster is not a shapeshifter. It is sort of a big alien carrot. Like it's a weird plant monster, but that movie is based on a story called "Who Goes There?", in which the alien is like a shapeshifting monster. So Carpenter's film is closer to the book, but he was inspired by the movie.
Ethan:All of this is my weird roundabout way of saying, I think it's interesting that a movie made in, like, during the Cold War, is so centered on the idea of, you know, you can't trust the people around you. Anyone, these people that you thought you knew, might secretly be harboring this ideology that's detrimental to the human race.
Ethan:Like, uh, I, I just, obviously, like I said, like, all that stuff was in the original book that all of this goes back to, but considering that Carpenter, his inspiration was primarily the movie that didn't have those elements. I think it's interesting that they're at the forefront of Carpenter's film version.
Sarah:Yeah, that is cool how the sources blend and come back around and make it into The Thing. I didn't realize it was based on anything.
Ethan:Yeah, it's um, it's always fun whenever you see like Reddit threads or anything that are like, "what's a remake that's actually good?" Uh, The Thing is always like a fun answer because yeah, a lot of people are like, that's a remake?
Ethan:It's one of my favorite movies. And I also just briefly want to touch on the score. Because I, the score is very like understated but effective, which is sort of par for the course for John Carpenter films.
Ethan:What I think is really interesting about the score, up to this point, Carpenter had always, like, scored his own films. Um, obviously the most famous being Halloween, you know, everybody knows that Halloween like da da da da da da da da da da da da score, uh, it's really super iconic, um, one of Carpenter's most well known pieces. But he didn't score The Thing. Um, it was like his first big studio movie. And, uh, somebody in production convinced him that he should hire someone else to score it so that he could focus on the other aspects of the film. He was reluctant to do so, but ultimately, uh, did hire, uh, Ennio Morricone, who is a very famous composer for films.
Ethan:Uh, at the time The Thing was made, he was most well known for, like, spaghetti western stuff. He did the score for, like, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and stuff like that. The Carpenter was a huge fan of his.
Ethan:And I just think it's really interesting, you know, if you listen to Morricone's other work... It's a lot of like big orchestral pieces and stuff like it. It doesn't sound like the thing sounds The Thing sounds much more like one of Carpenter's own compositions. Um, it's heavy on synthesizers and stuff like that. It's got that very sort of stripped back main theme that starts like almost like a heartbeat.
Sarah:Yeah.
Ethan:Then sort of gradually becomes this other, you know, song. Um, it's, it's great.
Sarah:I have, uh, some really shitty notes taken about the music, and one of them says "Badum Thud music", which is what you're talking about. Um, yeah, it's very minimalist.
Ethan:Yeah, it, it fascinates me that It's not just a Carpenter original score. He did score some pieces of it, because at the time Morricone uh, composed the film edit actually wasn't finalized, and so there were scenes that Morricone didn't see and couldn't score, and so Carpenter kind of filled those in, um, afterward. But the vast majority of, the bulk of it is Morikone's work.
Sarah:That's interesting, it's... I think shows a lot of range in that composer that he can, uh, not mimic some of what I'm looking for, not imitate, but use John Carpenter's style in such a convincing way.
Ethan:Yeah. And they, they both had very good things to say about working with each other as well. Carpenter said, you know, Morricone was lovely to work with, like, very responsive to Carpenter's notes and stuff like that. Yeah, it's just, it's really cool to me. They, they clearly collaborated very heavily initially, I guess, uh, Carpenter's main notes were just like, scale it back, like use less notes.
Ethan:I think he said, you know, the thing that he mostly said and then Morricone would, and it would be great. Uh, Morricone did. After that sort of collaborative session with Carpenter in Rome, uh, where they did most of the work, later did some more orchestral pieces and like, sent them over to Carpenter and was like, "Hey, you know, I did these two, uh, Use them or don't, it's up to you."
Ethan:And Carpenter was like, "wow, I never would have done this. Like, this is not my style of music generally, but like hearing them and putting them under some scenes and stuff, like they really work." Um, so he did end up using quite a bit of that. Not all of it, but quite a bit of it. I think, um, Humanity parts one and two are both like orchestral pieces, uh, that I, I assume probably came from those sessions.
Ethan:Morricone actually ended up using some of the unused tracks for the thing, from the thing, in "The Hateful Eight" that he scored, uh, like, you know, many, many years later, and I believe, like, won awards for. Um, yeah.
Ethan:Uh, soundtrack's so important in any film, but I think especially horror films for setting tone, and I think it does a really good job.
Sarah:It does. There were a couple scenes that specifically jumped out at me. I didn't really get to appreciate the music throughout, but, uh, the Ice Vault, when they, when they find that, it's a very screechy track.
Ethan:Mm.
Sarah:Uh, it's very upsetting in that way. Yeah. And when they, when they find the, the ship, it felt quite dreadful intense.
Ethan:Yeah.
Sarah:So it did, it did a good job.
Ethan:This is completely out of left field, and disconnected from anything that we've been talking about. I should have brought it up earlier, but I didn't, and now... Now I just have to crowbar it in because I just want to mention it before we wrap up. Uh, the scene of Mac sort of like recording an audio log, kind of in the middle of the movie, it's such a small moment, but it's really good.
Ethan:It's one of the only times in the film that you can see the toll that all of it, all of the events are taking on Mac. Like, Kurt Russell just comes off as so like tired and sad in a way that he's not in the rest of the movie when he's just alone in this room talking to his little recorder and he just says, "no one trusts each other anymore and we're all very tired" or something like that.
Ethan:And it's just like brutal. And then I think he rewinds and records something else over it. And it's just like this really quiet human moment. Some of those are sprinkled through the movie and I, I, think they're all really effective.
Ethan:I think the Blair noose moment hits me like that too. And like Clark, uh, coming at Mac and getting shot is another one of those like small moments where you just, when Clark doesn't turn out to be a thing, it's just this very sad like, oh. Like, he was just a dude that was sad about the dogs. That sucks.
Sarah:Yeah. Clark did a great job with so little material, just expressing that sadness on his face when, when he hears that Blair killed all the dogs.
Ethan:Mm hmm.
Sarah:It's just like, oh, and you could interpret that as the thing being upset about it, but it, it wasn't the thing. So just genuinely sad about dogs.
Ethan:Yeah. It's one of the only, it's one of the only deaths that's not, like, a big, like, bombastic scare scene. You know? Like, all of the, the Norris shit, with, like, Norris and Doc dying, it's like, that's a big scene, and, like, the Palmer and Windows deaths are, like, almost funny, like.
Ethan:It's, it's almost kind of slapsticky how the Palmer thing like bites down on Windows and it's just like waggling its head back and forth and everyone's freaking out and Mac can't get the flamethrower to light properly and immediately after he burns them all to death is when Gary has the line about like "If you could, if you could get around to untying me, I don't want to spend the rest of this winter tied to this fucking couch."
Sarah:Yeah, that was perfect.
Ethan:It's so good.
Sarah:I know you gentlemen are busy or have a lot going on. Yeah.
Ethan:Great. But, yeah, Clark's death is just like, quiet and sad and so unnecessary.
Sarah:Well, it happens so quickly with, I was about to say with so little preamble, and, and like no, not much after it either. It's just very, he tries to go in and punch. Uh, Mac, and Mac just turns and shoots him,
Sarah:stab him, punch him, he's gonna stab him with his fist.
Sarah:Either way, it's just a very quick headshot over, not even a struggle,
Ethan:Yeah, um, it's also, yeah, it's, it's like weirdly funny sometimes too, like the, the couch line and stuff like that. Like, it's got a great... mix of, it knows when to sort of break up the tension, um, while also almost constantly just building tension.
Sarah:Yes, yeah, and just that's it. As an aside, I thought it was nice that the two Black characters both made it right up until the end.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. I really like Nauls as well. We didn't talk about Nauls like at all this whole time. But Nauls is, like, such a fun guy. He's, like, he and Palmer are kind of the two, um, comic relief guys, I feel like. But Palmer is, like, an asshole, and Nauls is not.
Sarah:Yeah, Nauls is more like class Clown. At the beginning they ask him to turn down his music and he goes and he, he mimes turning it down but doesn't.
Ethan:Yes. Exactly.
Sarah:And there was this great, this great camera cut. I hadn't seen any like it throughout the movie. Where it shows him tied up when the blood test is being done and it shows that he's negative for the thing, and it does this really smooth cut where he's then holding the flamethrower next to Mac. It is so good, it's just perfect.
Ethan:I always feel really bad in that scene, because this, this is a thing that a ton of movies do, and I, it always drives me crazy, but it, The Thing is, is a great example of it. They don't need very much blood, and Mac slices Nauls's whole fuckin thumb open, like, the whole thing!
Sarah:Yes.
Ethan:You even get, like, a shot of Nauls's face being like, aaaah, when he does it, like,
Sarah:that's what my face looked like, because I don't, I don't like that kind of imagery. It's upsetting.
Ethan:Yeah! It drives me crazy when movies do stuff like that. It's like, you could just, like, prick his finger, you don't have to, like, do an inch and a half long gash across the entire pad of his thumb.
Sarah:It's like they're going to use him for a blood sacrifice, and yeah, it's like in movies where it's like you just need a drop of blood and they slash their hand and they're like squeezing
Ethan:Yes.
Sarah:a pint of it.
Ethan:Too far. Calm down.
Ethan:Yeah, I'm, I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I, I really do love that movie. It's so weird and gross and tense and yeah, it's, it's one of the early movies that like really got me into horror and John Carpenter specifically, who's one of my all time favorite directors .And Kurt Russell. I love Kurt Russell. He's great in it.
Sarah:Yeah, yeah, he was Intense, sometimes. Uh, but yeah, it was, it was good. It was... I don't want to say better than I expected, because I know how much you like it, and you probably wouldn't have talked it up so much if it was garbage. But, uh, I enjoyed it more than I expected, being that I'm not much of a horror movie person. And it was a lot of fun.
Ethan:I think it's one of those movies that, like Scream, showed me as a young, like, horror newbie, that there could be a lot more depth to the genre than people often give it credit for.
Sarah:Yeah, I can definitely see that.
Ethan:Because with Scream, you know, growing up, like, in the 90s, slashers were this, like, sort of played out 80s, like, trope-y thing. And a big part of me, because I had never really watched horror movies, a big part of me just thought, that's what horror movies are, is like dumb teenagers, and then they get stabbed, and who gives a shit? And Scream so thoroughly deconstructs that, that it really like... Opened my eyes to like, oh, okay. So I guess maybe some movies are smart about it, but I still don't wanna watch like super gory, gross movies.
Ethan:And then I watched the thing and was like, okay, well that was pretty gross. But it had like this really good atmosphere. It was doing a lot more than just being like a gross out thing. There's a lot more to it than I was expecting. And that was just like another step further down the path of like, I shouldn't brush this genre off in the way that I have done.
Ethan:Which is a big reason why now in 2023, you know, the last five years or so, there's been a lot of discussion of elevated horror as movies like "Get Out" and "Hereditary" and stuff where people, all these like critics and, you know, Hollywood award people are like, "oh, well these. These horror movies, you know, they're actually saying something and doing something interesting. This is, this isn't just a horror movie. It's an elevated horror movie. It's, it's better than horror. Because we all know horror's bad, but these movies are good."
Ethan:I fucking hate that. Uh, we're gonna, I don't want to get super into it, because I think it, I think it's a discussion that merits a full episode. But yeah, that's so dumb. No, like horror has always, done interesting things. It's always been worthy of examining on a deeper level. And movies like The Thing bear that out, I feel.
Ethan:It's like how fucking "Silence of the Lambs" won a fucking award, and everybody was like, oh, it's a thriller film, not a horror movie. Like, oh yeah, the movie about a dude who fucking abducts people and wears their skin and they have to hunt him down with the help of an insane cannibal. It's like, oh yeah, no, that's not a horror movie. Of course
Sarah:hmm.
Ethan:No, it's too smart and well done for that. It can't be horror. Fuck off.
Sarah:You've got feelings about these.
Ethan:I, I do.
Sarah:We'll cover those, as well as, on a more, uh, wholesome note, um, you've touched on a topic I want to discuss and that is how to get into horror movies and, you know, a place to start for people like me who don't enjoy horror movies as much. So I think we can cover those two topics- not simultaneously, in future episodes for anyone interested in tuning into those.
Ethan:Yeah, for sure. I have, I have an ever growing list of horror movies I need to make you watch.
Sarah:I know.
Ethan:We're gonna watch "Black Christmas". We're gonna watch "The Invisible Man". We're gonna watch, oh, you know what I just. Just watched the other day for the first time, which is like a horror classic that I hadn't seen yet. "Jacob's Ladder". We're going to watch Jacob's Ladder at some point.
Sarah:Sure. Sure we are. Why not?
Ethan:All six Screams .The Descent.
Sarah:Jesus. Gonna have my work cut out for me.
Sarah:Now that I have watched The Thing, the... John Carpenter Masterpiece,
Ethan:John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece, The Thing.
Sarah:Yes. Ethan, do you have any final remarks for this incredible moment in history?
Ethan:I'm trying to think of a good line from the movie, but I can't think of one to close this out. Good movie. That's my closing thought. Good movie.
Sarah:All right, works for me. Well, I'm glad we got to talk about it. Thanks, Ethan.
Ethan:Thanks Sarah.
