Original subtitles

The thing was my first studio movie.

It was a huge opportunity.

It was released and hated.

I went to see the thing open in Wigan.

I went with a group of friends.

And the entire theater hated the movie, except me.

I was reading old reviews of the film.

It crushed it.

It was like a hostile reaction to the film.

And really, it really tore John personally.

It is the most nauseating thing I've ever seen on a movie.

Screen.

My agent, you know, is like... forget about the thing.

What if we wrong about him?

What the hell are you doing wrong?

It's a desperate movie without any hope.

What can we do?

What can we do?

I thought we'd made a really wonderful film that was going to do really well

until universal throw it away.

The great thing about horror is that the canon is decided democratically.

Ultimately, we're the ones who decide what the classics are.

There weren't a lot of people who went, whoa.

Wait a minute.

I think I really like that.

It was crazy.

That became...

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Those of us who had the foresight to recognize the thing as a brilliant piece

of filmmaking have shared that opinion.

It's been 42 years and I'm not sure that I get the film yet.

Got to be fucking kidding.

Time is the only critic that matters.

So whatever happened at the moment of release, it's irrelevant.

Here we are talking about the thing as the masterpiece it is.

But then to see it over years become the icon that it has.

It kind of goes, fuck you guys, you know.

This thing doesn't want to show itself.

It wants to hide inside an imitation.

Now a warm, scared, happy.

Whatever their reactions are.

That's a powerful movie.

We're gonna find out who's who.

Just a little head of its time maybe.

The novella that John Campbell is famous for who goes there was actually under a

pseudonym, Don Stewart.

It was a golden age pulp story.

So it was all bronze heroes and all this.

But the central idea was unbelievable.

This creature from the stars who can imitate anything.

And it comes down crash lands.

And when you let it out, it starts to imitate us.

The short story, of course, works from the internal.

The operative line is the man next to me in a human monster.

Quote, unquote.

Seems like a fine idea for a movie to me.

Going back and reading that novella gave it, I had a appreciation for how much more

faithful carpenter was to that.

And how skilled he was at picking out what was scary about that story.

John W.

Campbell Jr. was the editor of one of those science fiction magazines that

flourished in the 30s, 40s and 50s, particularly.

A lot of famous science fiction writers got their start in these magazines by

selling their stories.

But Campbell himself wrote the story on which the thing is based.

It was in a volume of short stories called Adventures in Time and Space, which

included, you know, the best short stories, you know, written to date at that time.

Isaac Asimov's nightfall, he who shrank Henry Hess' farewell to the master,

Harry Bates' short story that became the day of yours was still.

For most among you know, however, it was who goes there.

The origin of the original story, if Harry and I were correctly,

Campbell came back to his home, and he saw his mother washing dishes.

And he had the distinct feeling that that was not his mother.

He's mother had a twin sister who absolutely hated him by all accounts.

And he just grew up with this absolute paranoia of not knowing, is it my mother?

Or is it this other woman that does not like me?

I've heard of Carpenter denies that it has any influence of Lovecraftian situations.

But Mantis of Madness is right there, right?

And Campbell himself was part of these universe.

And this unknowable, indescribable horrors is very much in line with cosmic horror.

Lovecraft was the first author I read where there's these eldritch gods,

you know, demigods that were roughly as much of an octopus as a human being.

That I think evoked something again really primal, primal fear.

The Hocks film wasn't the short story.

The Hocks film dealt with an external monster, a giant carrot that would menace

the people.

One of the things that John did was screen the original thing for us.

And it was such a different vibe.

The thing from another world kind of sits between the old universal horror films and

this new age, the science fiction age.

It was so propagandistic that it was like, oh, come on, guys.

I mean, aliens are one thing.

But you're trying to equate that to another power, a government power

threatening us.

The Howard Hocks idea of people banding together against a common fire and

everybody being a community.

This is a sort of humanity in it.

It was scary.

That was a big thing.

There's a couple of scenes that are just unbelievable.

Well, the job, the popcorn goes live.

When our nest blasts that door open and then takes his step into the door,

and you see him clearing all this stuff away like it's made out of nothing.

The reason you see the movie that's going on in Halloween is because that was a

video tape that I had.

I really loved how Carpenter recreated that title sequence.

You saw the homage to the original.

There are two very different takes on the same premise.

In that sense, I've always viewed it sort of like the original fly and then David

Cronenberg's fly.

Never thought about remaking the Hocks film.

Neither did John Carpenter.

It was always about making who goes there.

It's not as much a question as it is a command.

Who goes there?

And if you don't answer right, they're going to start shooting.

You don't know the password.

You didn't say the right thing.

In this environment, in this story, who goes there?

Con everybody's mind.

Now, John had also just made a deal, as I know.

Two telefilm deal at Warner Brothers.

Two TV movies.

He was already at work on them.

So, we left with a project without John initially doing it.

Universal had signed Toby Hooper and Kim Hankle to a development deal at the studio.

Their work was to be shevered by William Friedkin.

For me, in a world in which John Carpenter temporarily didn't exist, I mean,

Toby would be a terrific idea.

I'd seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre laughed all the way through it, actually.

They were not particularly interested in doing the short story.

They went off and wrote a script very quickly.

It was sort of a nightmare involving a character, like, called the Captain.

And it was more like Moby Dick.

I remember very little little about it.

Toby, Hooper, I think would have gone more for...

Grin splatter.

Mind you, the splatter is pretty grim as it is.

If you certainly got the same sensibility of Carpenter in their both kind of 70s

guys, who's films are uncompromising.

She had another director they had in her contract at the time of Universal,

and that was John Landis.

John was editing Animal House, actually.

So he went to see it.

His version would have been interesting.

I'm not sure he can do something straight -faced.

Can I have a piece of toast?

I attended a previous screening at Paramount of the Bad News Bears,

before it had been released, which I thought was terrific.

When people have asked me in the past, how did Bill Lancaster come out for this?

That really was the answer.

Good writing is good writing.

Bill Lancaster, who was the son of Bert Lancaster, and by all accounts had a very

unhappy life.

But he introduced something which we weren't that used to at the time in the

early eight years, which was irreverence in the dialogue.

People talking like they normally talk.

They make jokes about serious things.

Bill Lancaster, the writer, I think, a good, incredible job by the unsung hero

on that film, because the construction of that film is very precise.

It was an extremely tight screenplay.

It just moved.

It releases these moments, which continue to increase the paranoia until the

unveiling of what it is.

It's like joy.

When that project laid dormant for about a year, there was something coming down the

way.

And about a year's time, it was going to make the case for us.

I went to the second showing of Alien, the Egyptian theater in Hollywood on May

25, 1979.

Loved it.

Angry, because I thought I had gotten there before us, but excited nonetheless.

Alien definitely opened doors to serious science fiction horror.

And we unabashedly sold this movie to Universal, you know, as the next alien.

And by that, I don't mean in terms of plot story or anything else, but in terms of

box office.

When he finally delivered the script, first thing I do, I put it down,

and I call John.

What do you think?

And he said, I think it's one of the best scripts I've ever read.

And I said, well, are you in?

No, it's a pause.

And he said, oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'm in.

Where's we needed to hear?

After escape from New York, I was approached by Universal too, work on the thing.

And I had mixed feelings, because I so revered the original.

John had a disdain for the conglomerate, kind of filmmaking that was going on.

He plays the Kermajan, and he is a bit of a Kermajan, but he's also a true student

of film.

You know, a lot of people don't know this, but the biggest influence on Alien is Dark

Star.

That is an Alien that gets on a ship, and yes, it's an inflatable beach ball,

but Dark Star does become the blueprint for Alien.

The assault on Precinct 13 was like the archetypal, Howard Hawkes, people banding

together against a common fur.

So he's already got people in a limited space.

Halloween was his Hitchcock movie.

The thing that impressed me about John first, before the film, was a profile in

the New Yorker magazine about John and about Halloween.

And it was about how a minimum of money could result in a tremendous financial

success if you're good enough at telling a story.

And then my career was set, and I became the horror guy.

Oh, is that?

And then the fog, it's the sort of classic ghost story in a way.

Escape from New York is pure speculative, ridiculous science fiction.

By the time he gets to the thing, he's taken all these ideas on board that

he's worked out in his other films, and he kind of puts them all to work at once.

John negotiated that in his contract, the ability to hire three people.

Larry Franco, Dean Condi, and his editor, Todd Ramsey.

As we have insurance, he went into this with a big universal size chip on his

shoulder.

You could just start with the helicopter flying in and the dogs.

And if you weren't familiar with the original thing or who goes there,

which probably most people saw it weren't, that's one place to start the film and let

it develop.

But when you start with the spaceship, you know we're going to go someplace way

different.

And it sets up a level of expectation that is very powerful.

It's just a metamorphosis in this slow appearance and this strange happenings.

It's a very clever narrative construction, often overlooked.

Every person I've ever watched this with who hadn't seen it before starts that

movie and goes, why are they shooting at that dog?

It's just a dog, which makes it really clear cut.

Make sure that that dog doesn't reach the camp.

That's the premise basically.

They're so beautifully efficient and linear.

I love the setting.

I love the quiet.

I love the sparsity of the soundtrack.

Middle June, to the end of June, second unit on the Juno Icefield.

This was the opening of the film, dog helicopter chase, and a few selected inserts.

I mean, it was just a blanket of white snow.

Forever.

And 40 miles across was a mountain range.

And I swore to God to look like it was 100 yards.

How I got into the shot was just because of the nature of the fact that we could

only have 12 people in the camp.

I had done some acting work, but not acting, but John figured I could do it.

And I figured I could do it.

I wasn't afraid to get strapped into helicopter.

The only way that I'm going to get in trouble is that the helicopter goes down.

One side of the helicopter was painted U .S.

and the other side was painted Norwegian.

So when they're going one way, it's one helicopter.

When they're going the other way, it's another helicopter.

I was just strapped in, and I had a rifle, and I was just talking gibberish,

you know?

But the fuck, fuck store, Bob, I wasn't saying anything.

In fact, we didn't have any sound there.

I'm sure of it.

So it was all ADR afterwards.

It's such a compelling image and it's such a compelling mystery.

By the time that dog arrives at Outpost 31, you're hooked.

John and I just because we were friendly.

I remember him talking about what he was going to do, and he was very excited about

it.

They started working, and Larry came to me and said, John wants to talk to you about

playing the Korean.

And I said, what?

Russell, you don't need to really talk too much to me.

He knows what he's doing.

I don't know.

It's this status of Monster Movie, I guess.

I was a suspense, or he's no, no, no.

It's a movie about paranoia.

And that hit me like a ton of bricks.

I said, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, wait a minute.

Oh, that's great.

And God, damn it, John needed somebody who would just come in.

Hit his marks, sale line, do it, and do it full bore all in.

And that meant Kurt.

Thank God.

I mean, because I think Kurt Russell, next to John, is actually responsible for

the status of some more than any other person.

As far as I'm concerned, a highly underrated actor.

I mean, he's done some brilliant performances.

Or some long hours, and difficult moments, but he knows that joke.

You know, you know, because I'm like a method actor and Keith and I are trained

actors at Juilliard, and Kurt would be like a...

So what are you guys doing over there, discussing your motivation?

It's incredible that even after many viewings of the movie, he's the one you're

looking at.

When you should be looking at the others, you know, I tend to...

Because I we assume, as an inspector, that he's not the monster, because he's

the guy.

His beard is fantastic.

His hair is beyond.

It means wild.

It's primal.

He's like a beast himself.

And those eyes are like chips of blue glacial ice.

His eyes are as frosty as the ice that they dig the thing out of.

It's perfect casting.

In the first scene, he's, I think, firmly established that he's probably an

alcoholic.

And all these guys were up in the hinterland.

Probably all of them having their own personal issues.

You wouldn't be in a situation like that.

If you didn't.

Poor baby, you're still under losing her.

McCready is the ultimate screen badass.

You know, Kurt Russell is the best at playing badasses.

Not giving a fuck.

Salt of the earth.

And he's a helicopter pilot.

He's not a scientist.

He plays chess.

He drinks his whiskey.

And he's the guy who really understands how to take charge of the situation.

McCready is very much how it walks currently.

He's hard-boiled.

You know, you can imagine in another epoch.

He might have been hungry, but I got you know.

It's a whiskey drinker.

He makes him reliable for some reason.

Probably because the directors of these films were like, how are the hawks?

And, and, and, try Houston.

We're semi-alcoholics.

I think.

They like, they're characters to drink whiskey too.

Because it made them real men.

I feel better about it if you never drink with me.

It's extreme that a guy who might have to jump in the helicopter at any time.

would not only be drinking, but be probably half in the bag.

Other people are panicking.

Other people are freaking out.

He just steps in and he takes control of the situation.

And we the audience trust him.

He'll be there in a minute, Doc.

He's meant to be the exceptional everyday man.

Right?

Like in any Western.

He's like, a man's got to do what a man's got to do.

And that's basically the philosophy.

And the spires are writing of that character.

It tells you he will.

Kurt Russell is two John Carpenter, as John Pierre Liu, who was two.

Francois Trufford.

Or Robert De Niro, two Martin Scorsese.

The French have a term for his actor, Fettich.

You got to go back to Elvis and escape from New York.

And we just had a great time working together.

Just gelled completely.

We were the right mix for director and actor.

The thing sort of epitomizes Carpenter through his selection of McCready as the

main character.

That type of character, that loner character, the guy who doesn't want to

follow the rules.

The guy who kind of is cynical about the world.

You can feel Carpenter speaking through McCready.

I don't know what Bill Lancaster and John did in terms of writing together,

working on it.

Just naturally, John might have had some alter eco feelings about some of the

characters that I played.

I think for McCready it was more a combination of common sense mixed with.

What the hell is this exactly?

What am I looking at here?

I have a problem.

How can I break this down?

Figure this out.

Is there anything with the Norwegians that they're saying?

Can we translate Norwegian to hear what they're screaming?

If there's another clue there.

It's like, oh man, they could have saved the whole thing.

I had to work with for two weeks with the dogs.

So I could stand there and accept the dog jumping on me without freaking out.

Because I was a bit badly as a child.

I was infected at that time, but I didn't know it.

And I didn't know it as a person in the movie.

And I didn't know it as the actor right away.

I probably was the first one to be infected.

It was all very murky.

You know, we have a little western town and some bad guys come in.

Like the way Gary, the moment he sees Lars with the Norwegian coming, he's not

stepping through the door open to the door and shoots him.

He smashes the window.

So that's like a western...

You know, it was like a western sheriff to me.

First goddamn week of winter.

Look, I haven't been able to reach shit in two weeks.

I doubt if anybody's talked to anybody on this entire continent and you want me to

reach somebody.

When we were doing the production design, but with John Lloyd, the tremendous

production designer, we talked about this being a kind of a government installation.

Green walls.

We had to repay them because Dean came up to me and said, the green is not a color

that's nice.

About a week before production began.

On the large stage set, 27, you know, the compound, hallways, recommend

everything else.

In a rare communication, my John Lloyd, that set had been painted a little lighter

color, a lighter, pale, almost hospital green.

John came down, it's not dressed yet, to look at it and completely slipped out.

I mean, I've never seen John this angry.

With an hour, John Lloyd came down and we painted a wall, a chest wall, that cooler

steel blue gray quality that you see now in this set.

And you spent a lot of time in this movie, staring at those walls, as they slowly

come in, and it makes a big, big difference.

It's not a subtle change.

U.S.

number 31 calling McMurdo come in over.

The film really had to look real, contemporary, as opposed to a stylized

science fiction film.

What were they doing flying that low?

Shooting in a dog.

That us.

We never moved the walls of the set.

We shot with the camera as if we were in a real, you know, environment.

My two favorite words.

Especially in sci-fi.

What if?

You know, in this case it was being presented as very, very real.

It looks like the kind of town that might spring up around, you know, a gold mine or

something.

It's a bunch of guys who look a little rough in tumble, even though some of them

might not be.

But they're bearded.

There's whiskey in their hands at all times.

This is very much...

I mean, it's literally a frontier town, because what is the South Pole,

if not a frontier of some kind, right?

I was wondering when El Capitan was going to get a chance to use his pop gun.

Let's say this was a job listing somewhere, right?

They all decided it was okay to leave society and go be at the end of the earth.

The other kind of person that does that is serial killers, frankly.

Can we turn anybody yet?

Some of the scientists get a pass because it's their scientific world.

But a lot of those guys, you're just like, they just don't want to be a part of

society, or they need to be removed from society, or they need to be away from

society.

You never questions these bunch of men?

Like, what are they researching?

The idea of isolating a small group of people in a enclosed environment,

and just watching what happens, it's very... it's very like a scientist

observing labyrinth.

How long have you been stationed there?

It says here only eight weeks.

Well, that's not long enough for guys to go bunkers.

Whoa, is she at one?

Five minutes is enough to put a man over down here?

They have a straight.

If you look at the script, it's a play.

It takes place in basically one room, and there's an ensemble of men,

like 12 angry men or something.

I can't see two slaps in the face provoking him into committing murder.

It may have been too, too many.

Everyone has a breaking point.

One of the things that I think is really indelible about the thing is the cast of

characters.

You recognize them the moment they walk on screen, not necessarily just their

physicality, but their character.

Everybody has their own sort of agenda and perceptions of this world, and we're

meeting them after they've already been there for quite some time.

Like when we meet them, there's a sense that they were pretty stressed before this

happened.

Right, had the alien not landed?

Something else might have gone wrong.

There were a lot of characters in the novella.

There were too many characters for a movie.

I thought so what we did was we cut it back to a reasonable number.

When submitting the script actors, we would let them know, and their agents

know, that this wasn't just another science fiction film.

The pretentious phrase that I used with the agents was we were treating this like

an iliacazan film.

John becomes in with a list, and he said, this is who I want for this movie.

And he starts reading the list.

No list is as follows.

Former treaty, Tom Atkins, for Blair, Donald Pleasant.

For Giles Isaac Hayes, for Norris, Charles Cyphers.

You know, Salah Wing, I guess everyone's entitled one good scare of.

You're beginning to get the picture.

It was John's stock company.

I went to John.

And I said, I think you're making a mistake.

You have for the first time, the money, in a chance, you know, to go after,

you know, whoever it is you really want to go after.

How many of their party?

We started with ten.

There'd be eight others left.

How do we know?

Guys, as crazy as that, could have done a lot of damage to their own before they got

to West.

The film was greenlit six months, you know, before John actually came aboard.

And during that time, Universal's casting department explored a few front-rank

options.

Wood, Clint Eastwood, be available.

Harrison Ford, you liked a lot of actors, came in to meet, like Ed Harris,

or Scott Glenn.

They all passed.

The reason usually was, they didn't want to play second-fiddle to a monster.

Jack Thompson was suggested by his agent to play McCready.

This is right after Thompson, and one of the best actor award for Rick and Morant

kept the Cannes Film Festival.

The only actor, I can remember, who could carry a film, who was interested

in doing it at the time, was Sam Shepard.

The red-descript and liked it.

The studio asked John to consider Kevin Klein.

They thought he was something...

Offered a little bit in terms of box office.

I just cannot believe any of this voodoo bullshit.

Childs, we considered Frank McCready, Ernie Hudson, the Isaac Hayes.

Tom's back up for the role as we... I don't know, it was Brad Dorff.

He and Brad were always up at the same roles, you know, at that time.

A crudy on nobody's.

I've known him for ten years.

It's my friend.

Vergary.

We thought of Kenneth McMillan, Kevin Conway.

An interesting idea was Richard Mulligan.

Will you hand cleave?

What's a thought?

John's original skate from New York list.

We had also thought about playing Gary as a contemporary of McCready's.

I wonder if there was any dramatic mileage to be had doing that.

And for that, we thought of Powers Booth.

Oh, come on.

Four stitches.

Barely grazed it.

Copper.

John wanted Richard Diesart.

I favored Brian Denny.

And John loved Denny, too.

Because he originally came in from McCready.

He was going to be a backup to Wilford Bremley for Blair.

And Will not sign on.

Right about this time, Roy Arbeghast comes to my office.

The mechanical special effects foreman.

And it says, I'm going to quit.

You're going to quit Roy.

Why are you going to quit?

Rob Boutin has told me that John Carpenter has asked him to play Palmer.

And I'm telling you that if he plays Palmer, he's not going to be doing any

effects work.

And I'm not going to take up the slack.

I go to John.

And I say, did you ask Rob?

I had to play Palmer.

And John says, no, no, no, no.

Rob asked me if he could play Palmer.

And I said, well, you didn't say no.

And he said, well, I said I didn't think about it.

Casting is an interesting thing.

And I think one of the things that's really interesting about that movie is for

me, for my money, I think John cast it perfectly.

First of all, he hired probably the best actors.

I mean, sounds like I'm bragging.

I don't mean me.

I'm good.

But he got Will for Brimley.

He got Donald Moffat.

He got Dick Diesart.

He got Charlie Halahan.

And by sheer talent, he pulled together a group of people, Joel Polis.

I mean, Richard Master, the chemistry, it was palpable.

I have to talk to you.

I'm tired of talking, folks.

I just want to get up to my shack and get drunk.

Each of those actors, from Will for Brimley to Kurt Russell, they are notes

and they are American symphony.

Yeah.

It's most every type of person that is in America.

And that's why I think it's very profound in the movie.

Now how does this motherfucker wake up after thousands of years in the ice?

And how can it look like a door?

I don't know.

They're brilliant.

They made the movie because of their humanity.

John gave us the gift of two weeks rehearsal.

And he had to fight for that, but he did fight for it.

And we just sat around the table, no props, no nothing.

And we read the script repeatedly, but we also talked a lot a lot.

We talked about premise and we talked about, you know, character development and

plot development.

At one point I wrote a blackboard, a piece of chalk, and a big table,

and some chairs.

That's all.

And I wrote on the board once.

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Every time you solve one issue, then something else comes up.

And so, you know, so we're constantly making these adjustments.

Keith and I were the two big guys.

We struck sparks off each other right away in reading stuff.

And we started like staring each other down around the table.

Not personally, but a little bit personally.

You know, and there's stuff like where I pulled a knife on him when he reaches for

the gun and everything.

That week totally invented that.

That was not in there at all.

I was very aware of the fact that John and I were in Cootz.

And we done two movies together.

Well, that's great, but it can make the... you have to be careful.

It can make the other actors feel like, hang on a second here.

You know, I know you guys, you know, but we never worked together here.

So part of my thing as a part of that crew was to try to make sure that didn't get

out of hand in any way.

And finally, after two weeks, John said, okay, look fellas.

This is it.

This is the script we're shooting.

This is what we're gonna do.

I ain't going with... I'm going with child.

Hey, fuck you, Palmer!

I don't remember feeling any tension between myself and other actors.

I may have repressed that.

But on the other hand, I wouldn't say we were a band of brothers.

Because we weren't.

It was a film about a bunch of guys stranded in this place.

And this weird thing happens to them.

And we all, when they had it, very realistically.

That female energy is missing, which adds to a much more oppressive environment.

Much has been said, which is fascinating, that the single female voice in the entire

movie is at the very beginning.

It's a machine.

Checkmate.

Checkmate.

And it's silenced immediately.

You know, it's the computer playing chess, and it's shut up bit.

This is gonna be about men.

Yes, my wife at the time, Adrian.

Oh yeah.

That was just probably pillow talk.

Hey, can you come do this?

It's very much fueled by the power of these men.

And it is a competition of who is the alpha male.

And survival the pants on it to other gree.

And the two most dominant men in the pack are the ones that survive at the end.

There was also images of women all over the camp.

When they watch a game show, there are clearly women in that.

There's a cut scene where Kurt Russell's getting around with a blow-up doll.

There was clearly an idea that they had to reference that there aren't any women

there.

I did formulate a theory at one time that the thing was kind of like the only female

cast member.

This is possibly why they're also afraid of it.

It was very much into body changing, body horror.

The idea of men being invaded by this sort of female ed type creature just adds to

the horror in a way.

That's fascinating!

I never thought of it.

Oh, my God, that you completely blew my brain right now.

I'm sure John would hate this, but the fear of something female hiding

inside a man to the degree that we have to destroy it and burn it.

That is a really fascinating read.

I love it!

They don't talk about women.

They don't talk about their past.

There's not enough time to do that.

So backstories aren't told.

It engages you as a viewer to not bog the viewer down with backstories or handhold

them and feed them every little bit of info you need instead of becoming passive,

the viewer becomes active.

You're engaged in the dilemma of these people.

You want to know more and you're paying attention.

Gary, a 30-year army man who worked up to the ranks to become an officer.

When they released the TV version, because it's all body horror, and they

weren't going to let any of that get onto the TV screen.

So they so heavily edited the film.

They had to go back and kind of start throwing in scenes that had been cut out.

And the weirdest thing you get is the voiceover.

The creator, your top helicopter pilot, worked for Hugh's aircraft as a test pilot

until he got into a confrontation with top management and resigned to take this

assignment.

It's kind of ruined the whole mystery of the film by blatantly telling you what

everyone does and why they're there.

Farmer, second-string chopper pilot, crack mechanic, who hopes to start up his

own business as a mechanic, a fine completion of this assignment.

John, I'm not really sure how important it is to him to understand the character's

psychologically.

What's going through their minds?

What is their mental state or even spiritual state?

Ham'll know.

That's too hard.

That's too much trouble.

I let them do it.

Mack, it may not clear up for a week.

Yeah.

And where the closest one's to him is.

All right, by me, Doc, I'm just lazy.

I remember Richard Dysar said he was a Russian spy.

But none of that stuff's on the screen, so that's what.

Except for you, Mack.

If you don't want to fly, we don't fly.

Galls, will you turn that crap down?

I'm trying to get some sleep.

I'll be shot today.

Peter Maloney was the right guy to play Benny.

I think.

And that's not necessarily a compliment.

He's not a very sympathetic character, but I think also he's another one who's

out of his depth.

That's part of the genius of the casting.

Most of these guys belong in an office.

Not in an outpost in the middle of Antarctica.

All these actors put their characters across so quickly, so economically.

He gets shot in the legs.

Then he starts winging up.

He was just a nice man.

Peter was sweet.

Peter was another fun person that kind of soft-spoken.

Clark, will you put this muck with the others where he belongs?

I got a call to audition for this movie.

And so I went up to the Coca-Cola building on Fifth Avenue.

And then to these chambers, I think it was a boardroom.

As far as I remember, there was no script at this point.

John was there.

A group of us were taken in at the same time.

An outline for a scenario to be improvised was laid out.

And then we did it.

We actually had a battle in the room.

We knocked over the table.

We knocked over the chairs.

We threw things around.

It was really wild.

And we were inspired by wanting to get the job.

There was never any offer other than Benning's to me.

So I was a weatherman.

Environment.

Weather.

Very important.

Benning's wins are going to let up a tad next couple of hours.

A tad.

Killing people about the wind that's coming up.

And maybe you shouldn't take off in that helicopter.

Sir, a scientific outpost and you need some scientists there.

Clearly the creature itself sees them as a problem.

Because who does he start going after first?

He starts going after the scientists.

The people that are going to uncover him.

I think one of the signature things on Halloween was the use of the Steadicam to

continuously move the audience through the environment.

As if they might be Michael Myers, keeping it suspenseful.

And the success of that gave us the idea that the moving camera was something that,

you know, involved the audience with the story.

Were they the thing?

We never really completely explained anything.

You want the audience to become involved personally.

Carpenter.

He knew everything he wanted to shoot.

And could actually lay in layers of meaning within a shot with a Mizzan Sen of

a shot.

In ways that isn't in his earlier work.

I think he was... it's not fair to say it as peak because he did a lot of great

things afterwards.

And before it, but somehow, I don't know, just as a visionary he seemed to be.

He was in peak form, you know.

Well, the audience knows that the dog is different than an ordinary dog.

Clint Rowe was the dog handler, and there were two dogs, but one in

particular was fantastic.

And he was half-wolf.

A wolf doesn't necessarily growl or bark.

A wolf looks at you, and then he goes for you.

And Jed had that.

There was no emotion behind it, but it looked exactly the same as when

there was emotion behind it.

When we would shoot his scenes, we had to do a minimum crew, and we'd all

sit around the camera very still, let him come in, and sniff us all,

and get used to us.

Clint comes in to the soundstage where we're doing the paperwork, and he comes in

with Jed, and he sits all the way over against a wall.

He said, I want to bring Jed, and I wanted to bring him in and introduce him to the

cast.

So I brought these guys in one at a time, and everybody did well except Charlie

Hallahan, who was terrified of him.

And he was like shaking.

And Jed was fine around him, but Charlie was like nervous as a cat.

Clint came over, and he handed a treat to Charlie.

And he said, I'm going to have him sit in front of you, and then just give him the

treat.

And he went, Jed, sit.

And Charlie went like this.

And he threw it.

And then Jed went, what that, what was that?

But the other one was Kurt.

He wouldn't do anything around Kurt.

He just kept looking at him and backing away.

Clint is saying to him, have you been around horses lately?

Or something?

He said, I'm not in a while.

He said, what about those boots you're wearing?

Have they been around?

Have you worn them around horses?

He said, yeah, but I mean, I've worn them a lot since it doesn't matter.

He doesn't like horses.

He really doesn't like horses.

Yeah, I can't remember that dog was not... I didn't care for him too much,

and he didn't care for me too much.

I don't know why.

I don't know.

It was like...

This dog came down the hallway.

He's walking towards me.

He's looking to the right and he crosses lands.

And we're tracking back with him.

Once again, he crosses lands with his eyes and goes in the door.

Don't belittle.

He wouldn't just can't do that, mostly.

And he was incredible.

The use of Stevie Wonder's superstition with his line about shadow on the wall is

incredibly on the nose, but it works.

When the dog comes into the room early in there, it comes to this one guy.

There's a shadow on the wall.

That guy is not in the movie.

If you look at that shadow, it doesn't match anybody in the movie.

What if a shadow is it?

It's just a shadow.

The intelligence of the log looking.

Yeah, I'm down there.

Yeah.

Because it's smart.

Every time the dog looked at anything, you could see wheels turning.

It was amazing, which suggests to me that the thing isn't just some sort of

instinctive organism, but it is actually thinking.

And the dog really sells that.

The one thing we know about the shadow on the wall is that the person has hair,

so it can't be child.

It's kind of woolly hair.

I think it's probably Norris.

I think this may be the point when Norris became infected.

Hair cut-wise and shape of the face, I think it has to be Palmer, but who knows?

And it's always been suggested that was Norris that looks a lot like him.

We now know it wasn't that actor at all.

It was actually a stunt double.

He was the guy because they didn't want a no one physical shape to make the shadow.

One of the fascinating things about the journey of the movie is you never knew it

any one given time where it was.

The thing I discovered is the less we know about the mechanism of the thing,

the better off we are.

How the thing worked.

How it worked mechanically within the story.

How it would possess people and how it moved.

It was always a developing situation.

Even though you read the script, I remember the invasion of the body

snatches the original.

They did a really good job of this seed pod growing into you.

And it's supposedly when you're asleep.

We didn't get into any of that in the thing.

It just sort of happens off-screen, which is, I think, the best.

As I was cutting things that were revealed to you, you go, oh, whoa, what about this?

Or what about now G?

You know, I didn't expect that it would be like this.

It becomes its own interpretation entirely in the director's hands.

And then the actor's hands.

Easter egg mentality, you know.

Didn't exist when we made the movie.

We had hoped our audience would come once, maybe more than once, to see it,

but it was designed on a macro level.

Not on a micro level.

Carpenter wants to give us enough information, but not so much he's spoon

-feeding it to us.

Very few directors can pull that off.

John Carpenter, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan.

If you want my honest opinion, I think John knows exactly who is who and

who was what.

And if you watch the movie, you can make your own deductions.

But it doesn't matter.

I mean, it really doesn't matter.

What

the hell happened here?

Richard Diesa has caught another actor who, I think, would see more at home in a

suit in an office.

And indeed, he was later a regular on LA law.

Anybody there?

Hey, Sweden!

I'm not Swedish, I'm acting all weeks ago.

You know, Diesa has really, really accomplished actor.

Almost classical, old school-type feeling at that time, 1980.

Somebody got to the blood!

Somebody got to the blood!

I just like his whole, his whole, his whole way of playing, playing Doc, you know?

Well, that test of work, Doc?

Oh, I think so, good.

The detail of the nose ring.

Those rings in the early 80s were not nearly as common as they are now.

It's a sort of indication that, you know, he's a bit eccentric.

Diesa was an old friend of mine.

I got drunk with him on multiple occasions.

I had smoked an incredible amount of dope with him, not nearly as much as he smoked

because he smoked a lot of dope.

But a great, great, great actor.

And Diesa had had a really good run.

Principal photography, with actors, began August 24th, 1991, on stage four at

Universal, with an Norwegian camp.

160 degrees outside in the midst of a huge summer heat wave in the San Fernando

Valley.

38 degrees on the stage itself because it was refrigerated.

Yeah, the refrigerated bits are...

was in particular the Norwegian camp.

And we were very careful to light it so you could see the breath.

It really gave a sense of authenticity.

We all got sick on the movie because of the refrigeration, but it was mild

refrigeration.

It wasn't the real thing.

We went down to an ice house in midtown LA to see about building a set in there.

It was intolerably cold.

We built Hollywood refrigeration.

Beverly Hills refrigeration.

Portable video unit.

Anything?

All in Norwegian.

The entire idea of the cold being the 13th character, it all had to always be with

us.

It wasn't enough to make it look cold, but as John Carpenter put it, how do we

get it to feel cold?

Cold is the character.

Cold is what kept this secret from us.

And then we made a mistake of waking it up and called this what will kill us in the

end in the movie.

It's everything that is waiting for us outside.

So the contrast between the hell and the fire and the screams and the bloody fluids

in the inside.

And the quiet, endless, eternal, cold waiting for us outside is what makes

the movie.

The depiction of the Norwegian base, which is visited by McCree Dee and Copper,

trying to find out what the hell happened there.

It's like the Snow Queen.

It's like everybody's frozen and dead.

Sleeping Beauty's castle.

That has the feel of almost like a ghost ship kind of entity.

I think it's Carpenter leaning into his love of cinema and his love of genre

cinema that works as a shorthand for the viewer.

It kind of gives the whole story a sort of mythical aspect, which I used to call that

the Chinatown syndrome and that this thing has happened before.

We find the guy that was frozen and had slip marks on his wrist.

We called him the sweet guy.

We had taken an impression of our mold baker, Gunner for dancing and an

expression like this.

And the alternate went down his throat and Gunner did not move.

When they removed it, this big trail of alternate came out.

Frozen blood, dripping from an Norwegian -dead scientist, is so horrifying and

beautiful.

And I think that it did feed from art around it, like the bacon of it all,

the goya of it all.

And we took some clear fiberglass resin and I tinted it at the color of blood.

And Rob asked me if I could get some intestines.

The company went up to Stuart British Columbia, and that stage was closed off.

And it was during the summer.

We get a call from Universal Security.

There's a smell, something's dead in there.

It's disgusting smell.

So we sent Eric Jensen down there, and he found that box of impugan

intestines that had a stench of unbelievable.

Stuck up the whole set.

There's a sense that a lot of these men have been in Vietnam, and a bit battle

hardened, and possibly have trauma.

And I think McCready is one of those people that has already been through some

sort of hell.

And he's one of the first, possibly the only member of the crew to actually get a

grip of what's happening.

He kind of understands it at a primal level.

I was kind of looking in my last viewing if there were dog tags somewhere for him.

I was looking for them, because it's so obvious that these men know how to survive

a battlefield.

Certainly the timing lines up.

Everybody in that camp probably saw some action somewhere.

They're all over 30, so that means 10 years earlier they were of draft age for

Vietnam.

Or in the case of some of these guys, they were draft age for Korea.

I think it's very much of Vietnam movie.

You know, I think that's part of why it's all man.

You know, there is the way they look.

If you put those men together, and you just put a uniform on them,

they're very much Marines in Vietnam.

So I think it's very much a child of the disillusionment.

Yeah, I think the film is, you know, a compendium of influences, burdened by

the Vietnam War.

Actually, I should try to get out of it.

All of us are including John, and we were draft eligible during that time.

The war.

I mean, I had a draft lottery number.

That's the helicopter pilot.

All things begin there.

See, when you're in the air and you have a problem, you've got to get it figured out.

You can't turn to somebody and go.

Um, there's nobody there.

And that's where I think the character of my treaty, he's already done that.

I need to be able to be in control of this.

Then a man in there or something.

Whatever it is, they've burned it up in a hurry.

I remember Donald when we uncovered the thing, he went like this.

I found this.

And I imagine the same thing that it was a grotesque, awful smell.

I mean, my face is even taking it on right now, you know?

I once went to a crematorium, and they opened the back of it, and I smelled

decomposing flesh for the first time in my life.

It's unmistakable what it is, even though you'd never seen or smelled it.

That was the first effect that we worked on, first autopsy.

We had a big stack of different body parts, fiberglass body parts, and then Rob

said, hey Ken, can you figure a way to stick all this stuff together?

Rob was working on the split face, but it was very much a collaborative effort.

It was a big conglomeration of things with the, like, the split head.

I remember being there to help dress it for Rob, and paint blood veins in the

methicyl, on this massive thing.

And the cast is sitting there, and they're almost starting to get to a

point where they're waiting.

And I'm just, like, having to paint all this, and I think Carpenter was like,

I think that's enough now.

to try and get me to start for because Rob's like, get going, get going.

One of the most iconic images is the split face creature that's brought back from the

Norwegian camp.

That's probably the one image that was released a lot in public.

We pictured, like, aliens looking like, you know, if something got a 1950's sci-fi

movie, this was, like, a whole other thing, literally, with all the weird faces

that kind of half-stretched face.

It looks like something got a basket case.

Well, the first real glimpse of the thing we see looks like a Edward Munch is the

scream.

If you know, it's an art project, in a way.

It's quite horrific because you can just see that it is a was human.

That was an example of it, sort of, absorbing and recreating those.

Because it's not necessarily two people being joined together.

But in my mind, it was that creature, sort of, being caught in mid

-transformation.

That was an incredible way for John Carpenter to set the stage, to sort of

say, okay, this is what the creature's capable of.

And you go, oh, my, they're in trouble.

Oh, my.

I think that face has a certain thematic half to it, in terms of duality and

doubling and paranoia.

I think it also has this, sort of, unquantifiable uncanny quality to it.

You know when you look at it.

Like, if you look at American World from London, it's a wolf, but it's beautiful.

It's a beautiful sculpture, and it's a beautiful looking creature.

In its way.

This looks wrong.

But the thing looks like it doesn't belong here.

It's uncanny in the truest sense of the word.

It is wrong.

I don't know what the hell's in there.

It's weird and pissed off whatever it is.

Benings, go get chiles.

And when I heard they were making the film, I was really, really, really,

really interested.

My agent got a call saying John wanted me to come in.

John and I knew each other.

We had mutual friends.

And we had socialized some.

He knew my work.

I certainly knew his.

Originally, when he asked me, I mentioned Donald Moffett's part.

And John said, no, I think I got the guy for that.

He said, what else are you interested in?

And I said, the one I relate to the most is actually Clark, the dog handler.

He's got a real presence.

And I love the fact that all he cares about is the dogs.

And he doesn't really care about the people.

You see.

Easy.

Yes.

Richard had a great sense of humor.

Really good.

But he was very, very dry.

And that slow delivery of his, you know, which always measured.

And if you have that subtext of, maybe you're not the person I think you were.

It adds a layer of fear.

Richard Master does that so beautifully.

He ostensibly is protecting the dogs, right?

But he has that internal thing going on.

The camera loves it.

Did you notice anything strange about the dog, anything at all?

Strange.

I had a University of Oregon t-shirt on that I wore almost through the whole film.

You barely saw it.

The only thing I thought there, this is the slightest piece of backstory,

was, yeah, if he went to college, he probably went to someplace like the

University of Oregon, which was kind of a outdoorsy, open thinking kind of a place.

And then I was absolutely sure that he had dropped out and gone to do what he loved

to do, which was probably gone to Alaska, or someplace else and learned how to run

dogs.

So...

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

What are you waiting for?

In the mid-70s, when makeup effects really was thrust into the forefront.

By the sign of the Holy Cross!

The artists that created these effects, Tom Sivini, Rick Baker, Stan Winston,

and later Rob, they became almost household names.

An invasion of the body snatchers was remade into something contemporary and

really believable in a lot of ways, better than the original movie.

American werewolf in London came out the year before, and Rick Baker had done

things nobody had done before.

The thing was the epitome of that body horror movement.

Pretty sure it's the movie that got John Carpenter called a panographer,

because of how graphic it was.

That just tells me he's doing everything right.

Talk to everybody.

I talk to everybody in all the special effects, guys.

You didn't want to see a man in a suit.

You didn't want to see a bug, or anything necessarily alien or a guy or a like.

I think I might have brought it up.

It was dismissed almost immediately by John.

I mean, the design trailer was so distinctive.

You know, he wanted to move his far away from those.

It was possible anyway.

We have a meeting with a gentleman named Dale Kipers to design the thing.

Dale Kipers had worked on caveman.

John knew about Dale and so Dale came in very shy.

Very shy man from Michigan.

And, you know, there was a bunch of different early concept sketches,

a creature that was designed that was very crab-like.

John sitting in his office looking at a sketch figure on how the fuck can I make

this big mechanical puppet?

Do we have to move from Dale to someone else?

And that's someone else became Rob Botin.

Rob of course, it appeared in the fog, and done some stuff with John.

It's like, do each other.

And it seemed, you know, at this point, it's like, take the natural way to go.

Even for this 6.6-foot-2-inch tall guy, 22-year-old with big broad shoulders.

You know, the howling had just been released or about to be released.

We thought we'd do it was great.

Only question was, could you do it under this sort of pressure?

I mean, because John at one point said, look, this guy is the film.

Now, if this doesn't work, you know, nothing's gonna work.

Before we hired him, at John's behest, I took one last meeting with Rick Baker,

who at the time was right in the middle of American World and London.

And the idea behind the meeting was not to get ripped into the film, but whether Rick

could work as a...

It's an advisor to Rob.

You know, he should Rob need help.

He should Rob need advice.

John's concern was, you know, whether he could deliver, whether Rob could deliver.

Rick, there was no way he could do it.

He was right in the middle of a World.

His schedule was full.

So we went ahead and became Rob.

It's the smartest man on the film.

We were given a facility called Universal Heartland.

That was in North Hollywood.

It was a larger facility.

It had been a shooting stage.

They had shot Buck Rogers there.

The original Star Trek movie.

There were still some props there when we moved in.

The plan originally was to do a lot of the work with First Unit.

However, the effects were very involved and sometimes very labor intensive.

I've known Rob since he started high school.

So he was probably about 13.

And so he was a family friend.

At that point, he also is when he met Rick Baker.

But then Rob got a movie where he was making an ape suit.

That was one of his first projects.

And so we knew that I was in hair school, so he wanted me to help him with it.

So I just was cutting up wigs and sewing wefts on a spandex suit for a movie called

Tanya's Island.

And then he got the howling.

And so he asked me if I wanted to work on it with him.

That's basically how I started on the thing.

was because Rob and I...

He's kind of like another brother for me.

I first met a childhood friend of Rob O 'Teen named Vince Prentice.

Vince told me many stories of him and Rob's childhood escapades, how the used to

do stunt work and do little home movies and stuff.

And then Vince told me that Rob was actually a printer scene with Rick Baker

and had worked on films like The Incredible Melting Man, King Kong,

and then some work on the container scene on the first Star Wars.

And I first actually met Rob in 1977 on the set of piranha.

And they were doing underwater photography with little mechanical piranhas.

In 1981, I was working with Carla Rambaldi on the film ET.

And I was doing test paint jobs on the different ET heads.

Well, short time later, I got a call from Vince Prentice.

And so he can.

Rob starting up a new movie called The Thing.

And we got all kinds of different creatures we're going to be creating.

And he wants to know if you want to come work on it.

Yeah, we're working on this silly-looking alien here.

I'm going to go out and do some great work with these guys.

I had been working on a film called Dragon Slayer to industrial light magic.

It flew back on the plane.

And my memories tells me that Rob picked me up at the airport, Rob Bo Team.

And at that time, he told me about The Thing.

We had a script.

He had a hell of a lot of ideas about what he wanted to do.

Pretty wild, pretty out there.

Where the really interesting stuff was going on was actually Rob in his area with

Mike Plug.

Because that's all they were doing was just concepts of what kind of creatures

can be formed.

And one of the greatest horror comic book artists is Mike Plug.

He created Ghost Rider.

His art is so specific, especially in the horror genre.

It's just amazing.

Definitely a guy who can imagine something if you can describe it.

And I think that Rob's imagination, Mike Plug's aesthetic kind of mutated together.

Because you needed someone who could be not constrained by, you know, the

classical forms.

We needed storyboards and potentially artistic renditions of The Thing itself.

And he was in our shop with us.

We had an office for him.

You know, they published Mike Plug's drawings, you know, the storyboards and

his illustrations.

Some of those were published in Cinephantastic Magazine.

And it gave you a really good glimpse into how it was done, the behind the scenes.

I think the kennel sequence is really enjoyable to watch because every time they

cut back, the thing is mutated into something different.

And it's so perfectly done with the sound effects and when the dog walks in...

So the first instance of The Thing feeling threatened and showing itself almost

prematurely because it wants to defend itself or escape.

We were basically tasked with coming up with duplicate jets for effects,

different effects.

The dog does just sitting there in the very beginning that's just straight and

it's starting to shake.

That was a taxidermy dog.

We went to a rendering plant in the city of Vernon.

Every morning, trucks from all over Los Angeles County would come and bring dogs

and cats that have been euthanized or roadkill.

We'd give them a case of beer every day we went down there just so they'd work with

us.

And I used to drive a little pinto station wagon and I had to go to the taxidermy's

and they put this dog in the back of my station wagon facing out the back.

People are staring at the back of the car and it's like, why isn't that dog moving?

The animated dog was all unlike hydraulics.

They had to pump air into the animation of the dog, but it looked so real when I came

in.

It's like, oh, oh, it doesn't, it's not moving.

Then when they started pumping that air in it and it starts, it was like,

that is fascinating.

The dog's head begins to split open and you don't know what you're like.

You need to find it to us, you know.

We saw drawings and stuff, but it was like, okay.

Rob always likes to push things to see how far it can take it.

And it looked cool.

People talk about design.

I always say, well, there's two elements to make up effects on monsters.

Horror and beauty.

If they don't have both, it's not memorable.

The moment the head of the dog flowers out, it's like a choreographic moment of

great beauty.

The hoses, we call them the hissing hoses, which were like these tentacles that would

come out and fly around.

Motivated by air pressure.

Sound, you can't quite process it because you've never seen anything like it before.

And then also in the dog, Kendall, was a chicken dog that he gave Stan

Winston to do.

I think Rob felt that the work load was becoming overwhelming.

I fought against him.

I didn't want it.

Can I say I was going to get all the credit?

The timing was perfect, by the way, because the shop was slow at the time.

He had a few team members there, Lance Anderson, Michiko Tagawa, Jim Kagle.

Stan was blown away by what Jim Henson did with regard to applying the puppetry he

developed.

Fortunately, that's where his head was when Rob approached him.

Isn't it interesting how all these artists, Rick Baker, Stan Winston, Rob Botin?

Those were like the three massive, the three pillars of...

We didn't even call it practical effects.

And they all had their individual takes it.

On the dog thing, they took a mold of Lance in a position, you know, with his arm.

So you had the dog's body here, and then you had the neck, and then here.

So it's just a ham puppet.

And once that was completed, they brought that back to Heartland, and we added a big

tongue, mechanical tongue.

And then we had tentacles that were... we shot him reverse.

The slimed dog that's in the corner.

I was puppeteering it from behind.

I had the muzzle, and one of the hands, and Vince Prennis was doing the other legs.

Vince was trying to pull the tentacles away, and he ran out of room.

So he just starts spinning around, wrapping the tentacles around himself.

Rob, more, more, more, pull, pull, pull!

When it absorbs the dogs, the dogs become a repeating motif.

And I believe that it had never come in contact with an animal like that before.

So maybe that DNA was sort of fresh in its metamorphosis.

The thing reaches up and punches through the ceiling.

And Rob was wearing some gloves.

He's rubber gloves with slime on him, and he punches through the top of the ceiling.

We can see part of it escaping into the ceiling.

And nobody goes after that.

I had never known that those petals were tongues of dogs.

And that the teeth that are inside are dog teeth.

So that that was a version of the thing reprocessing the dogs.

Because I always thought it was like a weird flower creature from another planet.

I'm seeing a post that people comment.

It says, if you freeze-frame shot, you can see a silhouette in the back of the head.

Someone back there.

And that's actually me.

Get your ass over here!

I loved the fact that my character has the responsibility of having to flamethrower.

I'm gonna be a badass.

You know.

The responsibility of holding that thing will put a little color in your shorts.

Because it's got like a hair trigger.

All you gotta do is tap it.

And that thing...

And it projects 20 or 30 feet.

Even if you just tap it.

At the same time, I was pumped up and happy.

I was also...

It's scared, shitless.

It's really funny.

Because now, I'm older than Wilfred Brimley was in the thing.

Which kind of blows my mind.

Because as a kid, he was such an old man.

Oh, my God.

Wilfred Brimley was cast as Blair.

It's a kind of vital role.

He's the one who figures it out at first.

Asking the questions, how long before the entire world's infected.

So we understand his descent into a little bit of paranoid madness.

When Brimley came into me, John offered in the role on the spot.

How long were you alone with that dog?

Blair is one of the first to be infected or absorbed.

And that we wanted to make sure that when he was off camera, the audience not think

about that character too much.

Now, Wilfred had been a stuntman for years.

He stood in for Bert Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.

He knew all these guys.

He was a real cowboy.

And I think at the time, China syndrome had just kicked his career way up.

And here he is.

And he was just the funniest man in the world.

And Wilbrimley was sort of like everyone's dad.

And I've never seen anything like this before or since, but Wil would be doing

rope tricks.

And they would stop work.

Imagine on a feature film, even in 1981, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars an

hour.

And John allowed all the work to stop for Wil to be telling us story about who knows

what.

Why?

It was two rope tricks.

Wilbrimley and I went back to horses.

I had looked at some horses and was thinking about buying some horses from

Wil, which I didn't do.

So the first day I showed up for...

I think we were rehearsing or something.

Very Wilford style.

You never called me.

What the hell are you looking at me like that for?

We're talking about the next scene.

And Wilford sitting there in his chair and he's doing this.

And we're, you know, we're all going, what?

You know?

And he says, you boys still think this picture is badass.

It's not about us.

It's about the rubber guy.

That was his line.

But it was really true in some ways.

One serious about who's who and sing by the way, might have to do with facial hair.

Rob Botin mandated that any of the actors involved with the effects sequences,

be clean-shaven, and this meant Wil would have to have a famous mustache shaved.

I felt a John to ask him to do it, which he fortunately agreed to do.

John Cobb has so many scenes in which they're up to a dozen characters in the

same frame.

And yet, no one is standing around looking awkward.

I remember Tarantino telling me on hateful eight years ago that he's a God I'm going

to shoot 70 millimeters.

Every single person, I got to deal with what they're doing at that moment in time.

I don't know what Carpenter's direction method is, whether he rehearses it with

the actors or he sets up the camera and tells them where to go.

But it looks effortless.

And it looks very natural.

And that's the hardest thing to do.

This thing, dog.

You know, you only see it in the movie for maybe five setups.

But when you look at the piece, you see elements of the sculpture that are

absolutely fascinating.

Rob was the one who he was auditioning for me to do the rubber to do the creature.

He said that the opportunity is it can look like anything.

It can look like all the creatures that it has imitated in the universe.

And that was the secret to me.

Now we can do something different.

Now we can really show our stuff.

This is a Hawks creature.

A Howard Hawks creature, a creature defined by its actions.

How many planets had this thing gone to?

So how many other life forms could be incorporated with human life forms or

animal life forms on earth?

Which opened it up even more.

Who knows why it had to leave the planet that it was on.

But it survived by understanding how it could emulate.

It could continue its organism by entering a different organism, going from planet to

planet to planet to planet.

When this thing attacked our dogs, it tried to digest them, absorb them.

And in the process, shape its own cells to imitate them.

The thing that detersed me from the astrobiology standpoint here is the

ability of this being to morph into whatever it attacks and absorb in some ways.

This for instance.

That's not dog.

We know on earth creatures that are capable of mimicking like this stuff around.

It's Blair who says it's a mimic.

You see what we're talking about here is an organism that imitates other life forms

and it imitates them perfectly.

When you take that as literally as the movie presents it, the mimic doesn't

really have its own identity.

The mimic, it simply exists as a mimic.

You had tentacles.

It's not like a swallowed and octopus.

The tentacles had to come from someplace.

And it has insectile parts.

And it has squid parts.

And it has fangs.

And it's part dog.

And it's part crab.

And it's part dragon.

There is something in its metabolism that allows that be to become the thing that it

actually kills.

If DNA or if amino acids are the vehicle to create, then it might be that an

advanced civilization could be capable of creating a sort of a library of bases.

And just play with that.

Cimitation.

We got to it before it had time to finish.

Finish what?

Cimitating these dogs.

I only saw this for the first time the other day.

I actually saw it on Reddit.

Because I was dipping into... I sometimes would just dip into movies or stories that

I'd like to see how other people think about them.

And for the very first time, I noticed that somebody else noticed that Wilfer

Bill Lee pokes at it with the eraser.

And then touches it to his bottom lip for just a second.

Not in.

Just literally touches it right there like him.

He's thinking, like, that's it.

He's done.

He knows that they're doomed.

And he loses his mind.

And he will become the first one to sound the alarm and the last carrier.

Both.

Blair is the biggest strut to it.

And therefore decides to take care of business immediately.

So Blair is probably a creature that's really out in the entire film.

Jesus.

How long have you figured this has been in the ice?

Where did I take these shots?

It seems like they were spending a lot of their time in a little place northeast of

their camp at five or six miles.

Charlie, he was just the sweetest guy on the planet.

I don't know how else to put it.

I'm sure everybody else would have said the same thing.

This is it.

The place where they're spending most of their time.

But he nasty out, Mac, 35 knots.

I'm going to go up anywhere.

Charlie was growing his own grass.

His own weed.

He was very proud of that.

A very well-read man.

Very well-read.

Really fun to talk to.

Great debater.

You know when he was giving you a statistic, it was legit.

God rest his soul.

He was always bringing in reference material.

Stuff about the backscatter effect, which is things buried deep in the permafrost.

Slowly, for whatever reason, rise to the surface and suddenly appear there.

Well, the backscatter effect has been bringing things up from way down around

here for a long time.

I'd say the ice is buried in is 100,000 years old, at least.

Sometimes it has to be too much, just too much information.

Joel's heroin is Norris, the geologist.

He's one of the men who go along on the helicopter flight to see where the

Norwegians found the block of ice.

He's got an important place on the team.

John Carpenter obviously has a great deal of affection and respect for the original

film of the thing from another world.

Indeed, he references it directly several times in his film.

The flying saucer at the beginning, he chooses to have a classic-looking

flying saucer, very retro sci-fi.

I guess now you can call it an easter egg or some sort, but I think those are all

intentional.

Hello, Dr. Professor.

Hello, Dr. Sam King.

And then

I got really fouled up.

You mean you're not going to do anything?

No, the thing, static's knocking it right out of the air.

Look, I am unable to reach shit in two weeks.

Right there.

Have a girl, do it!

It's burning.

You have the helicopter flying across the mountain range.

There's one kind of vein of mountains running through it.

And when they give you the references, I get a feeling if somebody out there

wanted to do it, they could triangulate exactly where this camp was.

And our active people might criticize it and say, well, we don't have mountains

like at the South Pole, so it's not a South Pole station.

Well, it never said it's a South Pole station.

And then there is a thing in the movie that says something about 800 miles away,

which is roughly the distance to McMurrow.

Mike Plue, he drew this outrageously big subbarrow record.

And I loved it.

I never had it made, and I don't think Kurt liked it very much.

I buttonholeed him in a party a year ago.

And I said, I'm sorry, I don't mean to bother, but I just can't help but talk to

you about the thing.

And he was happy to talk about it.

And I said, let's just start to start here.

Let's start with the hat.

And he said, I hate that damn hat.

Initially, he hated the hat.

Yes, he did.

But then he grew fond of it.

And I don't know how John talked him into it.

The...

Kurt had not been cast.

He was about to be cast as we went up mid -June.

John needed Kurt's outfit because he was going to play Kurt in one of the shots we

were going to do.

It's like a unit.

So John picked the outfit, including the fabulous hat.

That Kurt loved so much.

And that's where John established the hat.

McCree and going forward, and they're toy -to-flying saucer.

That's John Carpenter playing McCree.

I go to wardrobe.

And we're going through, you know, this, that.

And he got the thing.

And I keep noticing that there's a chair over there with this big sombrero on it.

I said, what's the deal with the sombrero?

She said, oh, that's your hat.

I just laughed.

I said, oh, we're in a sombrero.

And I think at that point, John kind of came in.

I don't know if he was out in the hallway listening or something.

I don't know.

And I said, the sombrero, and he goes, it'll be great.

And I said, all right.

If you say so, I'll wear that sombrero in a helicopter.

Okay, fine.

He showed me some stuff that they shot.

You had all these guys, you know, heavy clothes wrapped up, hoods, goggles.

And I was looking at this.

But it looked really good.

It looked really good.

And I said, what do you think?

And I said, I think it looks really good.

He said, but you see, my issue.

I don't know who's who.

I need someone to hang my hat on.

And suddenly, sombrero.

When I saw sombrero, he means literally a hat.

He says the old Ford thing, right?

Where's the horizon?

Right?

It's shot like a Western.

When the atmosphere waits down the characters, it's the nothingness.

Crushing little figures.

I remember he once looked at me and he said, OK, so, uh, garamant.

Hocks were Ford.

It's like saying, you know, Beatles or stones, right?

Back then I said, I think Ford.

And he looked at me and he goes, you're wrong.

There's a running joke that I have with a friend of mine.

We talked about whatever movie carpenter's made.

At some point in the interview, he's going to go, well, it's really a Western.

But certainly the thing as elements of a Western to a degree Quentin Tarantino

remade it as a Western in the hateful aid, which is snowbound.

He is Kurt Russell.

I hope it's not true that Kurt Russell's character in hateful aid is an ancestor of

McCready.

The fun thing about Kurt Russell and hateful aid is that he's kind of foolish.

He's not on top of everything and he's not got it all figured out.

We are led to think he's that guy, but he's kind of a dipshit.

Right, that's awful.

My character in that was not paranoid enough, just because you're paranoid

doesn't mean they're not after you.

My God, those beautiful matte paintings when they're repelling down where the ship

crashed, it's unmatched.

There's nothing that looks and feels like that.

When you see those beautiful, beautiful Albert Whitlock matte paintings,

there's spectacular.

So Carpenter really understood the classical 50s style of filmmaking,

but used modern special effects.

The production design, the cinematography, the matte painting, all by really talented

people.

It makes a place.

It creates a setting which is real and is also mythic.

The ship is right there, and it's open.

I find it kind of extraordinary that they didn't even peek inside.

For whatever reason, it had to expand its horizons to survive.

You know, who knows what that is.

But it came here to simply do that here.

Was the thing piloting the spacecraft at the start of the film?

Or was it a passenger on board?

Or was it a sample being carried by a wail and new tiny type corporation?

Back to whatever planet for used as a bioweapon or something?

I have always thought the creature that was discovered in the ice was one of the

crew of the crash-landed ship.

And that they are a race of creatures that can take on the attributes of other beings

and then infiltrate.

I don't know, it's so confusing when you really think about it.

Was it just a life form that the actual crew on the alien ship were transporting

somewhere?

Maybe.

I don't know.

I thought it was like a sort of a high intelligent race in the ship.

And they were collectors of organisms like Darwin on the HMS Beagle, finding

specimens, examining them, and they find this creature.

Maybe, you know, also shape-shifted in another creature, probably.

And they let that creature break loose in the ship and basically kills everybody.

And that's why it crashes.

So we wanted to build all these sort of glass things with these weird creatures.

Like, a little bit like an alien.

What we were designing for the pilot was an alien species unrelated to the thing,

just like human beings are.

That had been taken over by the thing.

And they had, in this ship, they had various containers holding different

creatures from all across the galaxy.

And so, theoretically, they picked up a creature that was a replicant,

or was infected by, or something other thing.

And, you know, you can't contain the thing.

The thing was owned by Universal.

So, they licensed it on, and they did all sorts of things.

They didn't have to ask me.

You basically have to do it in Norwegian with an all Norwegian male cast.

That was my proposition.

Now, looking back on it, I would never have done it, to be honest.

But it became a sort of, like, reconstruction of, like, the double-faced

monster is outside.

How did it get outside?

There's an axe in the door.

The guy's committed suicide in his chair.

All these things we had to make fit.

And I think that had, sort of, a burden, a little bit on the story.

Reportedly, a lot of very skilled people made some wonderful practical effects.

Only for the studio to obliterate them and put computer effects in, instead,

with the result that nothing really looks real.

It looks weightless.

The idea was really make it, like, 80% for real.

And then really do some postwork on it to enhance stuff.

Because I think, in 2011, looking at rubboutings, although amazing work,

if you would incorporate that in a 2011 film, people would go like, hmm,

that's a bit odd.

There was a scene in it where they go into a spaceship and there are the frozen and

dead, shriveled bodies of the aliens that were on that ship.

It was a parallel to the Norwegian camp in the first film.

And we did create a character where in the thing was replicating itself as one of

these aliens.

But people in the test screenings thought that's the actual form of the thing.

And so the decision was, well, we can't show this.

They basically decided we had to replace everything we see, G.

I really like what they did with the prequel.

The story of the Norwegian outpost is already a remake in a sense of what

happened to outpost 31.

You can expand the universe by telling us what happened before, but at the same

time, kind of remake the original.

But it's also a story that exists in the continuity of the original film.

I always thought that the thing was sentient and that it did have a plan.

I think it just probably landed in the wrong airport, so to speak.

Well, if you examine the creature in the thing, the thing itself, it has one

defense offense, which is to hide and escape detection, so it imitates.

I think this thing is sentient in that it has a awareness of itself and an awareness

of its desire to continue existing.

But a lot of what it has become is a conglomeration of everything it's been.

It has a plan.

It is profoundly intelligent.

It has absorbed the souls, not only the bodies, but the souls of many,

many creatures around the universe.

It is way smarter than all of us.

I always wondered if you took all your cells of your victim.

Would you take the sense of smell of the dogs?

Would you become a better smeller?

It's just made for a good monster movie.

It all came to a good head to have this combination of unanswerable stuff that

just makes people, people's minds want to explore.

Happens all the time, man.

They're falling out of the skies like flies.

Well, I had no interest in the genre of horror.

But when I read the script, I was intrigued by the situation that the men

find themselves in.

I thought that was interesting psychologically.

Now how's this motherfucker wake up at the thousands of years in the ice?

And how can it look like a dog?

They wanted me to come in and read for the part of Benning.

I thought I don't want to play another college educated, science-minded character.

I want to play someone who is more working class.

I told my agent, but I would also like to read for Palmer.

Not necessarily any less smart, but less educated.

Child?

Child?

Cherry to the gods, man.

Palmer's out there.

You know, he's had some of the best lines.

He's the funniest guy.

Really, really, really good actor.

In love doing what he loved playing, the party was playing.

He was having a lot of fun with that.

I became very attached to the music that I wanted to hear through that tape player

into the headphones.

It was probably the rolling sounds.

You know, so I was really happy hearing that music as I went through different

scenes in the movie.

And then the sound mixer said, we have a problem.

We can hear the rolling stones coming through your headphones.

And so I had to give it up.

He's kind of a good counterweight because he comes up with these hippie-dippy,

especially theories about aliens, which makes what people like McCready say

about the thing almost sensible by comparison.

And he smokes a lot of weed.

So that's going to give him a unique view of the world around him.

He thinks, yeah, so some creatures from outside our world came down and taught

human beings how to feed themselves, how to grow crops, how to raise animals.

I just cannot believe any of this voodoo bullshit.

He has the answer.

Cherries of the Gods.

They practically owned South America.

I mean, they taught the Incas everything they know.

The 70s was a boom time for UFO sightings.

And capitalizing on UFO sightings.

There were books, there were movies, there were TV shows in search of.

There was a movie where, like, James Earl Jones played a man who claimed

he was abducted.

His eyes are flat.

Cherries of the Gods was a book about a popular theory that human beings basically

exist because of aliens kind of settling this planet and building the pyramids and

the Aztec temples.

They are our gods in a sense.

Interestingly, this is sort of where Prometheus ended up being about.

because Ridley Scott came up of age in the 70s when we believed all that shit.

Now, someone, maybe Richard Massor would say, well, when Palmer is talking about

the chariots of the Gods, is he already the thing?

And he's doing this chariots of the Gods thing to distract them.

You buy any of this, Blair?

I had to struggle with this movie because I had to embrace the darkness.

Because it's into the world stuff.

And I had gotten into it more or less thinking I was going to make hopefully a

good monster movies.

I am such a man.

It's grim, and you have to embrace that.

Even the way they do the computer simulation, all mankind wiped out.

None of them are going to make it.

It's now just about stopping that thing.

Other movies, especially of that time, would have had the scientists going like,

this is the alien cell, and this is what it does, and the whole explanation.

And this movie does it quietly with just text on a screen.

Who made was this sort of bleakness that was a real sign of the times.

It was basically no hope.

The choice you could read Bill's script, Bill Lancaster is a real script.

You would see it's more of a movie movie.

More humor.

John transformed the film and sent it to it, hurling to the apocalypse.

You don't really get to see the creature as the creature would be when it crawled

out of that spaceship.

You do get to see it on that computer screen, but that is a graphic of what

happens on the cellular level.

You know, this was actually the computer.

And I can remember that we had a bunch of tests because the frame rates and this and

that and all the crap that goes with it to make that work.

There is a little in joke there, which is, you know, John Carpenter big

Asteroids fan.

And when you look at the blood scene with Blair, there's a scene where you can see

the cells kind of taking each other over, which very much hints back to Asteroids.

Actually, on the set of things, there was a Asteroids game.

So we would play that.

It's a console deal.

But I personally think there might also be another little history bit here going back

to 1951.

Remember, John Carpenter is trying to fill this film with lots of little nods to the

original movie.

You get a lot of thing merchandise, including a pinball machine.

Maybe this little nod of having the pinball machines there to go back to this

1951 version of the thing.

I have to talk to you.

I'm tired of talking to you, because I just want to get up to my shack and get

drunk.

Mac, it's important.

I went to USC, University of Southern California.

And that's where John studied film.

So when I went to meet him, that was serendipitous.

He and I got along like gangbusters.

I did the first audition, then I came back and read again.

That when I left, I went, oh, God, I blew it.

I'm not going to get that move.

I really wanted to do that movie.

And I remember walking back across Central Park to my apartment and being so

dejected.

And I think by the time I got there, the phone rang, and they told me I booked

the film.

Outside.

It's 40 below us.

I'm in the fire call.

Please, Mac.

You reminded me a bit of Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws.

He's a guy who comes along with a beard and glasses.

A bit of an intellectual.

He's some sort of scientist, a geologist, or biologist, I think.

And he actually has a good grasp of what's going on.

There's something wrong with Blair.

He's locked himself in his room and he won't answer the door.

So I took one of his notebooks in the lab.

Yeah.

I always thought Joe Paulus is when I was walking down a hallway.

I look in and see him.

It's like, what, wait a minute, what's going on here?

And Joe was perfect in that scene, right?

Turns around.

And he was so paranoid.

There's nothing left but paranoid.

He's kind of plays a bit of a woman in peril role at one point.

He's alone in the lab and the lights go out.

And he's going around like a woman wandering through a haunted house.

I went down to Baroque College in New York and I took a biology class and I was doing

dissections of...

You know, I was... I always loved biology but I wanted to back myself up.

And if you read the original script, it says assistant biologist, intelligent,

unassuming.

So yeah, I had a backstory.

Just doing a grant for graduate work, applying to work in Antarctica and that

kind of thing.

Girlfriend at home, not going to see her again.

You know.

Who's that?

Well, the thing involves an alien species from outer space.

It's buried in the ice for thousands of years.

That classifies the thing is definitely science fiction.

The thing is definitely a horror movie.

The sci-fi element is really only in the genesis of the threat.

It's definitely psychological horror.

I always thought that the thing was science fiction.

You know, it's got some horror elements to it.

I think it's a combination of a horror science fiction and psychological

thriller, I think.

I classify it as a science fiction thriller.

It has this little sprinkle of comedy here and there.

I just don't think it's a horror film as much as it is.

The human mankind survival.

How do we get out of this kind of movie?

I would say it's an intellectual man's horror film.

It's a sci-fi horror film.

And I will argue with anyone who disagrees with me, including John Carpenter.

You made a sci-fi horror film, John.

And I think a lot of rewriting took place between the end of production on the sound

stage at Universal and the beginning of production in British Columbia, Alaska.

John went and watched a rough assemblage of everything we had already shot.

It's all the interior stuff.

And John looked at it and he said, this is a boring movie about a bunch of

guys sitting around talking.

And it was a bunch of guys sitting around talking.

We ought to just burn these things.

Can't burn the fine to the century.

So they were shooting that.

I was cutting right along.

And suddenly I got this interpretation of how the thing might work.

That was different from what we might want to be communicating.

And so John came down and I discussed it with him.

I think we might have a potential problem here where some people are going to think

this because it occurred to me.

It's after the nine weeks on stage when John looked at the cut.

You know, and came to my office and said, it doesn't work.

Long boring, repetitive, but it's a long time between monsters.

I take her with the script right up to the end.

They'll be frank because it has to work.

Studio love the dailies.

They were seeing all of the stuff for the men on stage.

We held back all the creature stuff from them.

They liked what they were seeing.

And it's all of a sudden, John Carpenter is saying, you know, it doesn't work.

Sorry, Mac.

You have to move your stuff up.

I thought we needed to hit the idea in the theme's harder.

You seem to just start to get elected cold cloth.

Other scenes are repositioned.

Other scenes were sort of rebayed into something else, where the meaning,

where the meaning was changed.

They're computer graphic, the player watches.

It is a new scene, for example, that was remade out of something else.

It was John really doing violence.

But he was out ruthless with it.

And he knew he'd got to replace it with, you know, material that he would write.

And that he would have to shoot.

Not on the relatively cozy confines of the rehearsal a lot.

But in the most hostile environment imaginable on top of the world.

Stuart British Columbia.

Let's go, Benings.

I got to get some sleep.

John, he took us each one by one into his trailer in LA, before, just before we had

day one, to ask us if there was anything before we start shooting, that we had not

explored, or if they had any questions whatsoever about the process or anything.

And I told him, I didn't have any complaints, except that I wish I wasn't

the one to be killed first.

And he said, Peter, 10 out of 12 men are going to be killed in awful ways.

Somebody has to be the first.

Benings' transformation is the first time we've seen the thing, kind of manifesting

itself in a human body.

It's like running in on your parents having sex.

We're messing with brand new chemicals for the tentacles.

Those were a thing called smooth on.

Material called smooth on.

And smooth on, which not many people like to mess with anymore.

But the time Rob was like, oh, we can make the tentacles out of that and

make a really stretchy.

Benings is right there, Mac.

I swear to God, it had a hold of them.

But my death came.

I mean, it was my third death.

There were three deaths of George Benings.

Are there instances in this movie where you still had to fall back on the lesson

to learn as an independent director?

Things you had to do for no money or little money.

And no better example of this than the transformation of Benings.

The first one was written by Bill Lancaster.

In that, I escaped on a snowmobile.

One of the best scenes in the script after the panel, some of the dogs escaped.

And the men chased after the man snowmobiles.

And eventually come across a dog, a day I suggested doing this at night and

having this all by headlights.

That was a nightmare of a thing.

The dogs are going to turn and change into, you know, this monster dog and it's

going to solve this huge chain of events where tentacles are going to start

appearing from underneath the snow, pulling snowmobiles down.

One of them pulls Benings down.

The character down.

And it's just hell to pay.

This is going to be a giant L on stage 12.

And can't believe it, so we could do effects underneath and out from the side

of the wall, including fire.

Terrific scene, everybody loved it.

We couldn't afford to see it.

So we have the new death of Benings, which we shot, of me being killed by the

thing in a human form.

That was hard days shoot.

And I'm transfixed by the dogs.

The door opens at the end of the hall and a figure slowly walks towards me.

And I don't see it because I'm trapped here with awful wonder.

And he comes up behind me, wraps a barbed wire or a rod around my throat,

pulls it tight, pushes the screwdriver in, rips the chain-link fence, hoists me up

and hangs me over.

That's the end of Benings.

Why would the thing having taken over one of the bodies here in the camp feel the

need to put a ski mask over his face?

It's not truthful.

The only reason that the mask exists is so the audience won't know who it is.

It isn't Benings.

Those hands that you see are used pair of hands that we had used for, you know,

four or five months earlier, they're the hands that Palmer uses in his flight to

the ceiling.

This is a situation where every cell in your body has been changed maybe in a

couple hours.

And what exists is still a person who looks like you and exists in the exact

same physical space as you, but every single cell of your body has been changed

into this alien, which is now what you are.

So at some point you have died in this transformation.

Whatever was you is gone.

And the thing is now impersonating you.

Rob sent up a pair of insulated tentacles and some orange KY jelly.

And the pair of hands.

Nobody from the effects team was up there.

You know, and John made this scene work.

And this scene is, you know, man turning into monster.

You have to hold John.

My best friends are forming a circle around me.

And this terrible thing has happened to me in the evidence this year in my hands or

my arms or whatever they are.

It's like something out of Philip Kaufman's invasion, the body's nurtured.

It's so scary.

Because you see his breath, you see the look in his eyes.

And it's just a hand.

And we're like, oh, we caught you at the first 30 seconds of your transformation.

Then he lets out that alien scream, which is a really good sound effect.

It's unearthly.

But that sound is one of my favorite, favorite sound effects in movies.

Oh...

And we got towards him.

And I'm not towards him.

He was great.

He...

Everybody did their thing, man.

It also, I think, gives a rise to one of the films most touching movements where I

think it's Gary says to McCreedy.

McCreedy, I know, but things I've known him for ten years.

It's my friend.

And it's a reminder that, you know, these people turning into things,

where people, and, you know, they had relationship.

Donald Moffat is Gary.

He's like a company man.

I mean, how he ended up in the Antarctic, in charge of this weird group of men.

It becomes obvious as if it was the shit hits the fan that he's not up to it.

Donald was older than any of us, and very petitioned person.

And he played presidents of the United States.

I am the president of the United States.

He never succumbed to the lure of this science fiction masterpiece.

He just never did.

Who else could he use that key?

Nobody.

I just give it a cover whenever he needs it.

Donald, I never got to know all that while Donald was a little...

For me, anyway, it was a little hard to get to know.

Not that he was distant.

He was just kind of unto himself, I guess.

Donald Moffat was one of my favorite actors.

Donald and I had worked on television series together in the new land.

It's just a great actor.

So I was excited about working with him again.

And he goes from, you know, being the sheriff to the end of the...

...to everything at the end of the movies is, what do we do, Macrini?

What do we do?

What can we do?

What can we do?

What can we do?

We get a sense that he's a little bit of the odd man out in the...

...in the group.

To see him deal with that and then to see him lose leadership.

When Macrini rises, it's just terrific.

And Donald Moffat plays that perfectly.

I guess you'll all feel a little easier.

Somebody else was in charge.

And it's a dynamic that John emphasized when he rewrote in the second act.

Original Macrini came out of the pack.

It was a lot more reluctant.

John, for story purposes, really.

And being a character to drive the action to move Macrini front and center in

command in charge.

You've got to burn the rest of them.

Macrini, he's trying to save his own ass.

And the only way to save his own ass is to save everybody else who isn't the thing.

More than leadership, it's about independence.

You know, Kurt Russell's character of Macrini is not listening to anybody else.

He's going to do it his way.

All right, step back.

It's a wonderful dramatization of what I call authenticity.

And it's what natural leaders have about them.

So as you see the original authority figure in the group lose credibility.

When shit starts to happen, nobody can explain.

Macrini has the balls to step up and take charge of this situation.

I think Macrini taking charge is sort of a foregone conclusion just based on how the

film is cast.

We know who the star of this movie is and we know who's going to be running the show

eventually.

And I think there's a lot of pleasure on carpenters and in the storytelling idea of

this sort of like lone wolf pilot who stays up in his cabin by himself,

having to lead the group.

I'm sure that's all of them.

They cleaned out the storehouse.

The ladder is nothing left.

The pecking order was a real thing.

It just was.

Everybody fell into who their roles were.

That's all I can say.

I think the other interesting leadership theme about the thing is that it's sort of

parallel, something that happened.

In another movie that year, Wrath of Khan, which is about a no-win scenario.

And how do you perform a no-win scenario?

There's a senior at the end of the film where Kurt Russell tells the guys that are

left.

None of us are getting out of this alive.

We're not getting out of here alive.

And it takes something to sort of admit that to tell your fellow men that and to

act on that in a way that is for the common good.

You understand me.

It's got a gun.

Well, the interferes are killed.

Blay.

He's the guy who goes crazy and starts destroying all the cancer equipment,

especially the radio.

I have a theory that's when he knows he is the thing.

The big question among the crew and we were wounded two weeks over here.

The question was, would you know if you were a thing?

And we can't nobody can answer that.

Nobody can send it out of here.

Nobody!

And I don't think he wanted us to know.

He wanted us more to suspect one another.

Now, I never had to worry about that because they offed me about one third of

the way through the movie.

Ask Dave Clinton.

It doesn't matter if the character I'm playing knows he has been overtaken and

absorbed by this alien life form.

It doesn't matter because the behavior is identical to what the behavior would have

been before the attack and absorption occurred.

You have those spiders who are infected by lichens or those ants that are affected by

some viruses and they become zombies.

That might be the closest thing we have in nature.

What happened to the mind?

What happened to consciousness?

What happened to all of those things?

What if this thing could imitate you perfectly?

How would you know that you're not who I think you are?

Our answer to that was not necessarily the McCreaty's answer.

McCreaty's answer was I know I'm human.

But McCreaty might be wrong.

He might not know.

It's an interesting gray area in the movie.

How much memories from the previous people that their hosts that they have access to.

They never really play around with that in the thing.

They never go tell me where you met your wife.

This is what's fascinating about films that work in fantasy horror.

What is it like to be a victim?

What is it like to be a killer?

In this case, is the human trapped inside in the back seat of his temporal car?

No longer hands on the wheel going, oh my god, what's happening?

We did talk about cheating.

Actors playing it as a character and then doing something for the audience that's

really misleading.

There's no cheating.

And if you have that subtext of maybe you're not the person I think you were.

It adds a layer of fear that you can't get by slitting someone's throat or blowing

something up.

It's actually quite a brilliant insight into mankind, isn't it?

I think it's easier for the thing to just let people believe that their human beings

rather than try to imitate what that person would do under this situation.

If that makes sense.

I think the thing logic is when you're infected, you don't know you're infected

until the monster decides to reveal itself.

So there are things we talked about all the time.

More than any other show I ever worked on.

It was very tight.

It's tough one to break down.

How are you doing, old boy?

How do you do an old boy?

He liked him, you know what I mean?

That's again.

The other thing is, McCready was like that guy.

He didn't dislike people for no reason.

He didn't like it.

But you knew when he was fair.

I don't know to trust.

I don't know what you mean by her.

Trust the tough thing to come by these days.

Somebody in this camping what he appears to be right now that maybe one or two of

us by spring, it could be all of us.

Is there some kind of test doc?

Well, yeah, possibly.

I've been thinking about a blood serum test.

Realizing that they shot on a real glacier for a lot of that movie in the cold,

in the snow, in the remote desolate area.

It just terrifies me.

It created an oppressive, heavy environment.

So Universal's mandate to us was, you know, he said, whatever you do,

you know, wherever you go, make sure, damn sure there's snow when you start filming.

And that led to Stewart Bridge Columbia, by the way, because it was a snowfall

capital of the world.

There was a copper mine that had a road that went right by this glacier,

went up to top of the hill, big copper mine.

And there was a little spur road off of it that we built.

We were right on the side of a glacier.

John never signed a film, we shot there.

This was, I should say, a more provincial time.

No electronic monitoring.

No way to see what we're saying outside of, you know, getting to the lens.

We were mid-millen, and then below was Stewart Bridge Columbia.

That's where we stayed.

They flew us from LA to Anchorage.

And then from Anchorage to Base Camp, was a six-hour bus ride over these mountains.

And it was the entire cast, except for, I think, Brindley.

And every day, the cast would be bust up the mountain, up this treacherous road.

But they would call ahead when the mining trucks were coming down.

And you had to get out of the way, because they were barreling down.

So, being the director at Above the Line, I flew up at a helicopter.

We had white outs up there, so we almost bought the farm.

The rest of us were in this bus.

And we are climbing and climbing, and there is nothing for hundreds of miles.

But ice and boulders.

Now, I'm from Maine, and I moved to Colorado when I was very young,

when I was 25 years old.

I spent a lot of time in the snow and ice.

It doesn't bother me.

I like it.

I feel very at home at it.

I'm sitting up in the front.

The guys are in the back, and then it's a long ride, so the guys are starting to

doze off.

But I did not like the way this guy was driving the bus.

I can remember the lights of the bus on the increasingly heavy snow that was

accumulating on the road, on the mountain road.

And people kind of were wandering while they were going to sleep with their head

against the window or whatever.

And suddenly, the bus driver yelled, slide!

He locks up the tide, locks it up, and we're just going to slide slowly over

the edge.

This is the entire cast and crew of the movie.

We could be gone.

I had to get it going sideways, and then hit the brakes.

I just jumped over this guy and threw the wheel this way and hit the gas.

And the left rear wheel goes off the road.

So Kurt says, all right, everybody stays still as possible.

Who's in the back of the bus?

And he goes, all right, Tommy, get on your hands and knees, and crawl

forward, slowly.

Everybody stays still.

One by one, we crawled off the bus and we pushed the bus back onto the road.

And I remember turning around and looking at the guys, and they were all just

looking at me.

And they knew they had the right McCreaty.

And we arrived at Basecamp at like 5.30 in the morning.

There was John Carpenter standing on the corner, 25.30 degrees below zero.

With the cigarette hanging out of his mouth waiting for us, shaking each one of

our hands as we got off the bus, having no idea of what just transpired

that he almost lost all his men.

They had to face the fact that the film itself could break up in the cold.

For us, it was a circuit.

And it was the fact that the batteries would die so quickly for everything.

From that to the speed freezing in the mouth of actors, so their diction was

terrible.

And you couldn't understand what language they were talking in to actors getting in

a mood.

Because you have to go and go and go in the cold.

And you have to see their faces.

The whole compound that was going to have to blow up at the end of the movie,

that's where we hung out.

That's where we stayed.

We had to keep the temperature inside at about 28 degrees so that it wouldn't melt

the snow on time.

So we were never not increasing weather.

When truly, you know that if you stay out there for 45 minutes, you can die.

It changes absolutely the nature of what you're seeing on the screen.

It was called for John.

You know, John's a thin man.

I'm a big man.

So I had some I had some blubber saving me from the cold.

And John didn't take to the cold that well.

Probably the actors coped with our locations better than I did.

He's a trooper, you know, he's going to fight through it.

He's going to slog through it no matter what it is.

And it's fun to watch him slog through it.

He doesn't have that man-mountain dean.

Let's go get it kind of... he's not that guy.

But he was involved with a lot of people that were gun-ho and going for it.

And so there he was.

And he was leading the pack.

Let me explain about the South Pole seasons.

There's only two at the South Pole.

There's summer.

Summer runs from about November 1st to about February 15th.

That's when it's light 24 hours a day.

Relatively warmer.

But once you get to February 15th, that's usually about the time the last

flight will leave.

You know, you've got the first goddamn week of winter, first goddamn week of winter.

And that, you know, the craziness can come out at that point in time.

All those people that have held back and let it go a little bit once that flight

leaves.

The thing, the movie, the thing, is to ride a passage.

The first weekend after everybody's gone, the summer people are gone, they'll be a

showing.

What I'd like to do is get up in front of the crew and then tell them that right

away.

It's a training video.

You see the dynamics of the crew.

You see the dynamics of the leadership, for example.

You know, or lack of leadership.

I think the film feels authentic.

The sound design is, I don't get involved in general.

But the atmosphere or the sound of the Antarctic was amazing.

One thing that was shown pretty well is that you do the things you need to do

where you can, where you have space to do it.

You also have very narrow corridors.

You are trying to cram as much as you can as little space as you need.

Of course, they've got weaponry in there.

They've got a falling thrower.

They've got things that fortunately we don't have.

Blood supply, I'm not sure.

I know that we have a very competent medical staff with a doctor.

We could do transfusion stuff if we had to.

I'm not sure.

Actually, if there certainly wouldn't be anything like they show in the thing.

But I smiled at the room where they are playing.

Because that tells you also, this is the end of the day.

You are in a very, very extreme environment.

But in that place, so it's sudden, you are done with your day.

You are becoming a person again.

You are not the scientist.

You are not a function.

And then you can relax.

There is drinking at the South Pole Station, and at times it has been an issue

in the past.

But it's not like that.

The things that were completely ludicrous is to have somebody by minus 40 coming out

in the leather jacket.

And the cowboy hat.

I mean, that person is dead with him 10 minutes.

You can be caught rustle.

You're going to be dead in 10 minutes.

And your leather jacket is going to be so hard that you are probably going to be

able to break it with an eye-spick.

I remember coming out of a bar in the middle of the night.

It was like 12, 11, 30 at night, and it was still like dusk.

And I'm going, like, what the fuck?

You know, it was like weird.

You know, we had, like, an hour of nighttime.

Stewart, British Columbia, and Hider, Alaska.

It was kind of a lawless place, as I recall.

The police only came in to that area twice a year.

And when they did, everybody just left town.

Seriously, they just disappeared for, like, 24 to 48 hours.

Actors love to be directed, but when they're not directed, they start wandering

and drinking and searching for women.

And this was what happened on Saturday nights.

It was unbelievable.

Wow, there are no women down there, so.

It was a little desperate, but we survived.

So there was just a bunch of guys just getting, you know, shit-faced every Friday

and Saturday night.

I forget how long we were there.

I think it was three weeks, maybe.

It could have been longer, but I think it was three weeks.

Yeah, we all sort of bonded on that, too.

There was a one-bar, two bars.

Can't remember the name of one of them.

The other one was called the hiter-in.

It was a little, you know, shit-hole bar.

But they had this thing called up being hiterized.

They have this booze called Everclear.

It's really alcohol.

It's only... it's, like, 90... it's, like, 180 proof.

It's 90% alcohol.

And they throw it in a shot glass, and set it on fire, and you have to blow

it out, and chug it down, and then you get this card that said you've been hiterized.

There was a bartender poured Everclear all over the bar.

Like this, up and down the bar, and then lit it.

There's blue flames rising up here.

And his name was Barfly, and he goes like this with his hands.

And all his hands up, and his hands are burning, and the flames are rising from

his fingertips.

I was one of the first to be hiterized.

I drank a little... no, not much.

Some weak pot, and, you know, the operative drug on choice, by the way,

on the movie was nicotine, you know.

John was two or three packs a day, so was I.

I took TK and Keith in to be hiterized, which was an interesting moment.

And two rough story to tell.

It was a strange place.

I mean, there were strange people up there.

And they weren't used to certain things, though.

When those things started to go sideways, it wasn't good.

They weren't particularly happy with this crew coming into their places,

and dancing with the women that were in town and whatnot.

It was like once a week.

It was kind of interesting.

Someone was having a fight with their husband at a table halfway across the room.

Getting very loud.

And she finally gets up and makes her way back to our table and sits down between

Keith and TK.

And I told the guys, I said, you know, I really think would be wise if you leave

the room now.

They did.

They got up and left the room.

Because there were in guns up there.

I mean, it got really racial in a very, very nasty way.

I never went back in there.

And I never hoped to go back in there.

But it was really frightening.

Gary, hey, you guys, come here!

Who got to the blood supply?

Come on.

Somebody got to the blood!

Where's Clark?

Right here.

I said to John once.

Isn't this a movie about paranoia?

And then he said, could be?

Wait a minute.

Was this broken into?

The lock is undanged.

Somebody opened it closed it and then locked it.

Well, the main idea of the thing is that lack of trust.

So you lose the ability to trust.

Who are you?

Who goes there?

Who are you human or not?

And that was the essence of it.

That was what we dug around in.

It wasn't just a...

When was there going boo?

I think the film is about paranoia.

Just that.

That's what it's about.

There's this horrific thing that's just trying to survive like we are.

It's, you know, survival of the fittest.

Oh, that test of work, Doc?

Oh, I think so.

Somebody else sure comes on some.

And when the creature comes across the camp of course, the men are already in the

process of falling apart.

I mean, they're already halfway at each other's throats.

And it's that sense that the creature senses and works on, you know, of course.

When you add robs, monster, which also deconstructs it's a perfect visual metaphor.

And I think it was Tarantino, who said it perfectly, because he based a lot of

reservoir dogs on the thing.

Because what he said was, it's the paranoia that they're so confined.

And the paranoia builds and builds and starts bouncing off the walls,

starts bouncing everywhere until it's only got one place to go.

Out into the audience.

Great.

I just happened to be in a great production of a great play, called

American Buffalo, by David Mann, with one of the greatest actors in the

world, Al Pacino.

And it was a huge hit in New York in 1981.

And I guess Kurt and John were in town auditioning actors, and they must have

gotten tickets.

Because I know Kurt hates to go to New York.

So they forced them to go.

But they came to see me, and they must have liked me, or my performance, I guess.

Why we cut our tickets to New Piddos!

And it was in rehearsal that I changed the name of the character.

Because they changed it from Sanchez to...

John Simmons.

I can't think of a more boring name.

John Simmons.

And the character kind of saw himself as better than this place.

You know, I deserve better than to be stuck out here checking the freaking weather.

And I'm going to go to Hollywood and be a movie star.

So if you notice, I'm reading a movie glam magazine.

It was the kind of actor who had listened and heard the phrase, there's no such

thing as a small role as only small actors.

I think he took that one to heart.

And it was great.

He wants to make something out of this.

You guys are going to listen to Gary.

You're going to let him give the honors.

I mean, he can be one of those things.

I found the pair of these green sunglasses.

And I wore them in rehearsal one day.

And I said, John, I want everybody to call me Windows.

And he went...

Alright, for now on everybody, Tommy wants us to call Windows.

Let's go on to the next scene, please.

We're in the sound stage.

There's only light on where the table is, this huge table that they set up for us to

be around.

And, you know, that's when Tom...

What he said, I...

I'd like everybody to call me Windows.

You know, I want to wear these glasses.

And all of us kind of looked at each other like that's a dumbest fucking thing I ever

heard.

But we did it, you know?

And it was great.

It was great.

Tommy was right.

He's got wonderful instincts.

When Tommy declared that he wanted to be called Windows.

And John said, Okay.

And we all had to cross out his character's name from our scripts and

write in Windows.

And Donald was beside himself that anybody could ask that question of a director.

That they changed the name, you know, to suit themselves.

He was really pissed off, really pissed off.

It's on the floor.

And when I was cutting it, the scene I thought this is going to be a real ball

breaker because it's so tense.

And it builds and it's going to run down the hall and, you know, come to fruition

there with Windows.

And yet, it almost cut itself.

I don't know about cover.

I'll give you my word.

I did not go near that blood.

A beautiful piece of direction and film construction.

And understanding of what you were trying to achieve in that scene as a terminate

when they give up the pistol.

You can't say that's really a big physical action scene.

But by God, emotionally it's every better of an action scene.

I'll take it.

I'll give you real.

There should be somebody a little more even tempered child.

It's always one of my favorite scenes in the film.

I think it was one of those powerful scenes in the film.

And it really, at that point in the storyline, it really fired off where we

were going with this.

I know I'm human.

They went up before I did up to start shooting on the glacier.

And when I got there, they were talking about, well, we're, you know, tomorrow

we're doing this.

I said, no, we shot that already.

We shot that in the rec room.

What are you talking about?

And it was the scene I know I'm human, where he's burning all the blood bags and

stuff.

That scene was all shot in the rec room.

It was incredibly intense.

And then John moved it outside and we're standing there at night in the dark in

Antarctica.

Talking, you know, who does that?

I just thought, oh man, he's just totally screwing this movie up.

I can't believe he's doing this.

And I was, when I left that second part of the shoot, I was despondent.

I thought, just why did he panic like that?

So then I went to see the film.

It was great.

And it really worked.

Now, for me, I still can't watch that scene without going, nope, nope,

nope, wrong, wrong.

Fucking wrong.

I can't do it.

I just can't watch it.

And John, I'm sure, would completely disagree with me.

This thing doesn't want to show itself.

It wants to hide inside an imitation.

It'll fight if it has to.

But it's vulnerable out in the open.

It definitely has a sophistication and an emotional intelligence to it that is not

really what people were necessarily craving in the 80s.

And hearkens back to an earlier time of the 70s films.

There's a storm hitting us in six hours.

We're gonna find out who's who.

Carpenter came of age of filmmaking age in the 70s.

He is a child of that era.

With that question, this has resonance in every era because there's always an other

that people can point to and say, that's... we have to watch out for them.

They're the problem.

Mac, I'm not a prisoner.

Now, in a more specific sense to the film, part of it is, can you trust who you think

you can trust?

And if not, what happens to society?

And if you can't trust anybody, there is no society, which is what happens to us.

Let me let me know what you're gonna break the needle in one.

Now, he's doing a real fine job.

The thematics of it, it being so mappable to so many different real world analogs is

just the mark of a good story to me.

The thing was one where I just felt like you could very much feel a sense of Cold

War paranoia.

You know, the idea of living in a time where maybe we're just gonna blow each

other up at any moment.

Are we really good custodians of this world?

Every horror film speaks to every individual in a different way to say it's

about AIDS, kind of diminishes it.

It can be about AIDS, but it can be about a lot of other things, a lot of other

subjects too.

When somebody goes nuts and starts shooting people, they check with the

coworkers and the coworkers go, I never saw any sign of it.

It seems like a normal person.

Well, that's kind of what the thing is about as well.

So I think it touches on aspects of humanity that are always with us and

always will be with us.

I see today, there's a name all over the internet now, which is a church soliloquy.

Nobody trusts anybody now.

We're all very tired.

Pretty apt to scripture that we were feeling in America these days.

I'm gonna hide this tape when I'm finished.

And none of us make it at least so be some kind of record.

I just found it interesting that he was putting it on tape.

We still have nothing to go on.

Leave a record so somebody can pick it up from there.

Yeah, that's one possibility.

You could say he's putting it on tape for a number of different reasons.

I just always thought that was an interesting one.

Hey, Blair!

Blair, have you seen fukes?

I'd never seen that palette in a horror movie before.

The blues, the whites, the dark, just being able to see people's breath.

If you watch the film, it's always blue.

The ice is blue, the outside's blue.

And they tried so many different types of blue just to see what worked on camera.

And they discovered the best blue with the landing lights out of the airport.

Blair?

But there is something magical about a Dean Cundee movie shot on film.

And especially with John Carpenter.

What I think Dean excels at is making it look glamorous.

It's still making it look absolutely real and terrifying.

There's nothing else I can do.

Just wait.

There's always red, and that's coming from the flares.

And it was only the flares, the actual road flares that used it, which would

never be done today, because those things are absolutely toxic.

I loved that John wasn't jumping in front of the camera and doing flashy camera

things.

And it was a very solid, very solid kind of approach to directing something.

He didn't over cover things.

Every shot mattered.

Coming from making a show about darkness and eyes, let me tell you that that very,

very tricky line, very thin line between not seeing because you're in the dark,

but seeing enough to understand the scene is the hardest thing to achieve for a DP.

It's just masterful.

John is a very quiet man, generally speaking.

Not that he's antisocial or, you know, he's a great guy to have a beer with,

but as human beings go, some of us are more loquacious, like myself.

Of course, when he's directing, he's a warrior, you know, because you have to be.

I would say he was businesslike.

He was about getting the shots.

And he was somewhat indulgent, I think, with the actors.

Hey, fuck you, Palmer.

I'm going with you.

Who says I want to go with me?

I'm the bullshit!

A poet is visionary.

They see a gate, he sees a head.

And that's what I think John is.

He's kind of a filmic poet.

John can shoot fast, but he shoots completely.

He knows what he wants.

He's seen the movie in his head.

He's very aware of visual storytelling using the camera.

Not using the camera just to record stuff, but creating mood.

Well, I found him to have a great sense of humor.

There's a lot of joking on the set.

He doesn't like to take credit for things.

He doesn't like to be complimented.

He doesn't care for that.

He finds it superficial, I think.

But he does respond to feelings.

He took a lot of courage, I think, to make that movie and stick to his guns

and do it the way he felt it should be made.

It really is a masterclass in how to shoot something and not get in the way of the

story and not get in the way of what the character's going through.

Show me.

I think he's one of the most known nonsense, absolutely socially incorrect,

blissfully independent, magnificent, blissful filmmakers that we can hope for.

Liskin.

Liskin, what are you doing?

Playing with myself.

I'm going in.

Elements don't float into a story.

A story is a story.

And I don't care about other movies, may.

I just tell a story.

For some reason I wound up on this jury of this film festival and I wound up going

across to Europe with John.

And I remember we were watching this movie one day.

That was in the festival.

It was this black and white thing from Spain.

And it was a little slow.

And it was a little tedious.

I glanced over and he does this.

He looks at his watch.

And he turns to me and he says, we're 40 minutes into this.

If somebody doesn't die soon, I'm going to be really pissed off.

One of the reasons why studios get involved is when things are starting to go south.

Financially, John is very conscious of what it takes and how much it's going to

cost.

And I am as well.

The only trouble I had during the making of the thing during production was,

I figured an interview.

And inadvertently, I realized what Holly was like.

I inadvertently told the truth about how much money the studio was spending.

And I got in trouble with the head of the studio.

It's the wrong thing to tell the truth.

I should have never done that.

So I learned my lesson.

Otherwise, no, they didn't bother me.

The groundwork of the movie was pretty solid.

They liked the script.

So no, I don't remember there ever being really any involvement from the studio on

the thing.

Except for their disappointment at the end when it didn't do well.

Where have you seen Fuchs?

I don't want to stay out here anymore.

I want to come back inside.

A recent viewing showed me that really this movie is all about reaction shots.

It's all about looking into the eyes of these people and the idea that we're not

sure if they're really them.

And I won't harm anybody.

And you've got to let me come back inside.

I'm okay now.

I'm all right.

Like, I just want to come in.

You know, that is...

It's so seductive and it's so weird, right?

And I love the news in the cabin, which is a Bill Lancaster touch actually.

You know, it's Blair playing possum.

You know, wanting to kill those habits.

All I act, you know, and it's great.

But that through line, which was so clear to it all, but I think it's less clear in

the film, which is why many people I think feel that Blair was infected once he was

inside the cabin.

I would argue that, Brimley being the most kind of intelligent elder of the group,

kind of a tribal elder, the way it was presented.

I think he represented the brain of the thing, if there was a brain.

Anybody see fuchs?

I think fuchs may be new or suspected or found something and then killed himself.

Is it fuchs?

I don't think fuchs was the thing.

I think we got to listen to Blair.

It ain't fuchs.

It ain't fuchs.

It ain't fuchs.

And there's a possibility, of course, that fuchs torched himself because he knew

he was either becoming or about to become a thing.

But there's another possibility, is that fuchs is not a man of action and

he's an intellectual, kind of tried to set fire to it and accidentally set fire to

himself.

I think that's not so implausible.

In the one edited out sequence where I think it's fuchs is killed with a shovel

and he's impaled to the door and then they took that out and then they shot it so

that he burns himself up outside.

Why'd you go outside or how did you die?

I get that a lot.

But I like to leave it to other people's imaginations.

It's great that the mysteries continue on.

And you just see it from the point of view of the cast and you get to wonder what

happened.

Where's my greedy?

They give you enough clues to keep debating like we still are today.

Look, it was stashed in his own oil furnace.

When was this lies?

But I don't think he saw me fine.

Who could have gotten them a greedy's clothes and burned them?

Did he... did he thing out?

Did he change out of them?

Did someone get them and try to frame him?

Is the thing that calculating?

So then you have to ask yourself the question.

So if this takes somebody over is it clever enough to frame somebody?

No, I don't know.

What do you disrespect will men and toss in his dirty drawers and the kids in trash

can?

But now I want my kitchen clean, right?

I don't think it's trying to get us to think that it's McCready.

They need to make the characters think it's McCready.

And the simplest way to do that is the torn clothes.

McCready?

He's one of them.

When do you think of that to him?

I don't know.

When any time, anywhere...

One of my favorite shots ever is when T.K.

Carter is on his knees when he's just come in from the storm and either the camera

just moves past him subtly to the doorknob turning and it's like, oh, God.

That's... that's what I mean.

I don't know.

That gave him me such a thrill when I saw it.

And I just watched the movie, of course, recently and I was waiting for that shot

and had the same effect on me that it did then.

You know, there's just so much about the movie that that is right.

Nothing human could have made it back you in this weather without a guideline.

Let's open it now!

Why are you so damned, I just let him in here?

Because it's so close!

Maybe I best chance to blow it away!

No!

Miles was like the strong silent type.

You know what I mean?

He didn't have a whole...

He spoke when he spoke but didn't have a whole lot of say, listen to a lot.

He got a lot of child.

He's the audience avatar in a lot of ways.

I just cannot believe any of this voodoo bullshit.

He kind of can't believe it.

And he's asking the obvious questions that the audience is probably yelling at the

screen.

You believe any of this voodoo bullshit, Blair?

And he's like, how's his mother fucker wake up in the ice?

He's not putting any floral, you know, language on it.

He's just like, what the hell is happening?

It's a crock of shit.

An alpha male.

He's the only other person apart from a greedy.

You could see taking charge.

Child!

What if we wrong about him?

What the hell are you wrong?

He and my greedy are kind of like opposite numbers.

I think he's the prototype for a certain kind of character in these ensembles that

is with good reason repeated off and throughout the genre.

Oh man, I'm a huge fan of Keith David and another John Carpenter stalwart.

Look, you crazy mother.

Put these off.

Hey, stay away from me.

I'm telling you, you dumb son of a...

I love him and I love his defiance

David, he's got the keys.

He's had a great career.

He's sized, powerful actors.

Really, I just had a really good guy.

For me, it was a particularly unique experience because it was my first movie.

There were two readings, two auditions.

And the first one I read just by myself, I'd think.

And then we were in the room with several other New York actors who I was very

familiar with.

It was like a fight scene.

Somebody hit somebody or there was a physical altercation in this moment that

we're reading.

When we get to this fight moment, I don't remember who the actor was,

but he, in order to demonstrate this fight moment, he took...

Well, that was on the producer's desk, including the phone.

He just went,

and everything on the man's desk went flying.

So Keith and I had gone to acting school together.

We had a few extra career activities that we engaged in on the stairwells of

Juilliard.

And we looked at each other for a second.

We're like, what the fuck are you doing here?

It was fascinating.

I'd never been on a sound stage before.

I only sort of remember seeing it in Sunset Boulevard.

And so that was...

It was actually fascinating to see, you know, 30-foot ceilings.

I think there were 30...

You know, there were just...

I mean, wow.

He's a fantastic actor.

And he could do anything.

Like Kurt.

He could play comedy.

He could play drama.

I mean, amazing guy.

And he was wonderful.

He was chasing women like nobody's business.

Up in Stuart Columbia.

Oh, man.

But that's okay.

Everybody was chasing women.

But...

It's Grandma.

I'm an all-male set.

Let me tell you guys.

It's Grandma for all of us.

Come on, Charles.

Burn me.

Look those torches on the floor and back off.

I loved all the characters.

But Keith David has always been, like, a special stand.

Why don't you come here?

What an actor.

Well, that's Uncle Sam for you, baby.

Money to play.

I saw an interview with him once.

And he said that after the thing, he didn't get another movie role for four years.

And I think the next movie role he got was another John Carpenter movie.

Was they live?

Wait, boys, wait.

You're making a big mistake.

You made the mistake.

Hollywood sucks, man.

I mean, for an actor of that kind of power.

And a screen presence with that kind of charisma.

And training?

And training.

To not be working all the time is a crime.

Who asked all?

He didn't have the same thing.

You're always wondering, you know, is he got a level of strength?

Because he's consistently a good guy, or is he a level of strength?

Because he is the alien.

And could basically consume everybody.

We don't know.

Now, nobody gets out of my sight.

Every so often he stops and clutches his chest.

And he's like, oh, no, dear.

I think that Norris has been fully absorbed and imitated.

And in imitating Norris, the thing has imitated a body that was not long for this

world.

Norris, whether human or imitation, was probably going to have a heart attack

that week.

For me, the most shocking, thrilling, unexpected memory-searing sequence is

gotta be.

The scene where Norris is taken in, and they're gonna do the defibrillator.

We're not defibrillator over here.

It's a masterpiece in itself, that whole sequence.

That, to me, is the signature scene of the entire movie.

There's enough effects in that scene to last anybody else a full feature.

Yeah, that's right.

We'll do this on the first tag.

We'll do that in the second tag.

No, no, no.

Let's do it all in four minutes.

All right.

And bam, I think that is one of the things that in the 80s didn't sit well.

Like, people thought it was a bit much.

So, sweetheart, you're about to have yourselves a lynching party, huh?

Each part of it was a separate, dedicated, discreet effect.

A lot of them were shot separately and then cut together to make it work.

So, we could get better control of the puppets.

Rob didn't let anybody take photos in the shop.

Never allowed any of his crew people to take photos.

And this was before the internet.

This was before everybody would take a picture and then five minutes later,

it's online.

So, there was a very, very concerted effort to keep a veil of secrecy around

what was being built.

Where Norris is on the table getting defibrillated is a great bit of

misdirection, because you're invested in something else in that moment.

A real light sleeper child.

And it's also really kind of ridiculous.

I do think his stomach opening up into a giant mouth with teeth is very Mike Plue.

Charlie Allen was in some pain.

And that sort of structure that Rob had, you know, where his real face was there

prior to where the chest blows open.

There was a mechanism inside that would tear open and have, like, sharp teeth

inside.

Who's to say the creature is evil.

I think it's possibly just trying to survive.

And it reacts when it feels threatened.

You could, of course, make another film from the creature's point of view.

I think there was a very good short story made from the creature's point of view.

All modern science fiction movies, we don't necessarily worry about the

motivation of monsters.

But the thing wants to survive, just look at it that way.

That's his first primary, primary purpose in its life is to survive, no matter what.

And it does a pretty good job.

Clear!

And his brick and chest opens up.

And then he bites off the chest, bites off the doctor's hands.

What the hell is happening?

What?

No one saw that coming.

Now, I created some gelatin arms, and I prerigged them with dental acrylic

bones and tubing and layers of, using anatomy book, layers of bustle

structure inside.

When we shot it, I was on a scaffolding suspended above the torso.

And I twisted and ripped the arms and the flesh.

The first take is in the film.

John Carpenter was on the bee camera.

He said, cut after the first take.

He goes, yikes!

I said, John, and I told him about the experience I had on my bloody Valentine.

The sensors cut all this stuff out.

I did some remarkable work on there, and it all got cut out.

He goes, I'll get it in.

I'd say my favorite practical effect is when Richard Dieshart gets his arms

chopped off by the chest monster.

And then finding out that the actual arms were of a double amputee that they used.

We took a mold of our actor in the grimacean expression and created a mass

that was custom fitted to this amputee double.

We had a gentleman who was a crane operator.

I guess he had worked at Universal, I think, at one point.

He had mechanical arms that he could work with.

It freaked us all out that this guy was having stubs put onto his arm with these

bulbs filled with blood that were going to be squirting blood.

This is how he lost his arms in an industrial accident.

And he was so happy to be there.

He just thought it was the greatest thing in the world.

But we were like, oh, my God, this is so inappropriate.

Why are we doing this today?

There's this volcanic eruption that comes out of Norris's chest.

And an inch will come flying out and it's undulating lips.

Up on the ceiling is a demonic, twisted aberration of the Norris character.

She looks like an insane medieval painting or something.

I had to paint it, paint all this stuff hanging down.

And then all of that caterpillar neck and the head.

All of that had to be fine red hair punched into all of that.

And that's one of my favorite pieces.

I rigged it up on the ceiling and Art Pimentel.

He was the smallest guy on the crew.

He was up in the duck work, puppeteering that.

I had the really good pleasure of seeing all the props from the thing, all the

creature stuff in Henry Alvarez's workshop in the early 90s.

And in the back of his studio, he had the Blair monster.

He had the Norris monster.

They had really decomposed pretty significantly because a lot of the KY

jelly that they would put on the creatures just dissolved the foam latex.

But the first and foremost thing that I found really surprising is how small they

were.

Because when Norris's chest opens up and that big creature comes out and its legs

are holding onto the air conditioning vent, you imagine that thing being 12-14

feet tall.

It was about six feet tall.

They were playing with perspective.

Unfortunately, not long after that, all those pieces were destroyed.

But I was really lucky enough to see what was left of those pieces in person.

I don't know very many people that I'd ever seen them.

It was all Rob's ideas.

That was all Rob's stuff.

He had a very fertile imagination.

Then he had a bunch of heads because they had to come off the table.

So I had to paint all those heads.

In the storyboards, there was always little stretching tendons and pops.

Boxes of bubble-yum bubble gum were being stockpiled on the shelves.

Do you see all those weird bulbous pieces of flesh that are green?

They're not red.

There's no blood in that scene.

Which I think is a direct contrast to the Palmer scene later.

We painted up the entrails that were inside the neck.

It was always like webbing with little barnacle texture to it.

And we painted up that with fantasy colors also.

We were trying to avoid the X rating.

And we were pumping different materials.

Flammable materials that gave a nice stringy look to them.

John Carpenter goes, hey guys, wait a minute.

At this point, the duck monster has been burned up and has fallen onto the floor.

So we should have a flame in front of the lens at the bottom of the lens.

We need the fire bar here.

And he brought it, they put it in front of the camera.

And he used like a barbecue lighter to light it up.

A blue flame one.

Because the fumes they built up in the room, the rob stands to take the step back

and goes, it's on fire!

And I took my arm and swept it across the chest and just left a trail of ash across

the chest.

They ran and pulled a puppeteer out from under the table.

Fire extinguishers are out.

Shh, too in the hole.

The hole bends to put it out.

John Carpenter goes, oh, how long...

The head hits the ground.

And it's still cognizant.

And it moves itself across the floor.

And it's just trying to escape.

That might be one of my favorites.

Because it's such an amazing likeness of the actor.

And the facial expressions and the grimacing is completely alive.

It still looks like the character.

But then every time you see it and you cut back, it's like, it looks like him.

But it's not him.

It's somehow evolved.

The thing here, I think, is thinking, how can I get away?

And it comes up with the idea of sprouting spider legs.

Maybe it's absorbed some spider-like alien on another planet.

Or maybe it's already encountered a spider on earth, either in the ice, if there are

spiders in the ice, or perhaps at the outpost.

And then goes, kitty-kitty-kitty, and hides for a while, under a desk,

breathing, and its breaths go.

And then goes off.

The remote control head, the spider head, they had a little camshaft that operated

the legs.

It's a motorized radio control device that has got a little card on wheels underneath

them, to have them scoot, and everything is synchronized.

The legs and the movement is all synchronized to look like it's propelling itself.

The spider head is certainly my favorite.

I have a casting from the original mold of that that I've had.

It's been sitting in my house.

I actually just recently in the last six months decided to rebuild the legs and

rework it.

Because I didn't love the hair on it.

And I even said to John, look, I have...

You know, I could scan this thing for you and make you a spider head if you want

one.

He just was like, I'll get back to you on that.

Got to be fucking kidding.

It was, you know, when you can see this puppet thing working, you went,

oh, that's great.

You got to be fucking kidding me, right?

I mean, that's the reaction the audience is having.

That's why that line is so great.

Because it's like, you know, Palmer says the one thing that's going through the

audience's head when that happens, right?

I should have known, this is a great line, it's perfectly timed in the script.

You've had this tour de force of practical, real effects happening before your eyes.

You've had this very frightening experience, this transformation of Charlie

Hallahan.

And it's scary, but it's also extreme.

It's like a ground we know.

It's operatic, almost.

I think the audience is saying, come on.

But it's very important to me that when John shot that scene, he got all the shots

that he wanted, and he was ready to move on.

And Richard Messer said something to him.

I said, wait a minute.

He said, what?

I said, you didn't get Clinton saying the line.

He said, oh, no, no, no, no, that line's going to play over the head going out the

door.

I said, John, you have to get Clinton saying the line.

You have to do it.

And he's going, no, Richard, look.

And he gets out the storyboard and he's showing me how the line is written.

I said, I don't give a fuck what that says.

Shoot it.

If you don't shoot it, you will regret it for the rest of your life.

And John was a little annoyed, I think, at first.

Perhaps that Richard would have the nerve to tell John Carpenter how to shoot the

scene.

He said, all right, fine, fuck, Dean, go ahead.

Shoot it.

Line it up.

And we were already led.

It was a matter of clearing everybody.

Oh, God, it'd be fucking kidding.

Okay.

The biggest laugh in the movie, one of the most memorable moments in the

movie, and John wasn't going to shoot it.

John's instincts about what makes a movie a movie and what makes people react to the

movie in the way he's hoping they'll react are far superior to mine.

But I know some stuff and that was one of the things I knew.

When I go to conventions and I meet the fans and they bring a poster or a

photograph to me or an album cover to autograph it, they say.

Would you write that line after it?

It crystallizes something for the fans.

That line captures something about the powerful effect of the special effects

make up, the special visual effects that Rob Boating did.

And then we burn the hell out of it.

Apparently it still worked after that.

I think it was able to kind of lip a lot.

What an insane sequence that could, could, and kind of is, comical.

It walks a fine line.

I think the best way to experience this scene after you've seen the film for the

first time is to watch it with Carpenter and Russell's commentary.

Because Russell is just howling.

He's just cackling through this whole sequence.

And I think it's a good example of how it's okay to laugh at some really

horrifying horror.

To me, what I like about some of the monster stuff is is his sense of humor

that he's infused in there.

It's horrifically funny.

It was shot in such a way that you never held on it or featured it too long because

I don't think John ever really wanted you to put together in your head what it was,

what it was like.

So it really sort of allowed there to be this almost fanatical obsession with

understanding who this guy, Rob Botin, was and how they filmed it.

I don't know, he was massive.

He looked like a Yeti or something, a Bigfoot.

His hair, he had the shag haircut and this giant lustrous beard.

Rob Botin is in a nigma.

He's one of those people that will go down in the annals of filmmaking.

Elusive, brilliant, funny, a little insecure, ground-breaking, and very,

very personal.

He's kind of revered as one of the greatest ever because of that movie.

He was in his own special world with it.

Nobody... we'd watch him sometimes get it ready and keep adding the goo.

When I met him the first time, I gave him a big daddy of Roth.

Oh, did you?

Model kid, and he said, how did you know?

Oh, come on.

How did you mean how big I know?

How can you not know?

And I've got his number through the corpsman folks, and I called him and he

had an assistant to pick up the phone.

Yes, I said, hi, is Rob Botin in?

And she said, yes, may I ask, who's calling?

And I said, it's Alec Gillis and she said, oh, yes, hold on.

And Rob gets on the phone.

Very kind of trepidation says, hello, this is Rob.

And I said, hey, Rob, it's Alec Gillis.

And he goes, oh, shit.

She told me it was Alec Guinness.

I went to ask for a job.

When he was doing total recall, I had my company.

I was preparing to do the chronos.

I was trying to learn everything I could.

I was making up effects.

Dick Smith recommended me.

And I went to Churavusco Studios in Mexico City.

And I said, I can clean walls.

I can sweep the floors.

I didn't get the job.

Later, he worked with me on Mimic.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Then of course we worked with him.

Yeah, yeah.

We spent hours just shooting the shit.

And I would be watching, you know, and we would actually be filming stuff.

Carpenter and Rob would be talking or Rob would be trying to explain what he wanted

to see.

And John Carpenter would just go ahead, Rob.

Rob was a great storyteller.

And it was a great storyteller.

When he described something, you get kind of swept up in it.

And I think John could see the vision, the wildness of this.

I'm sure that once the movie came out, and there was such a tremendous backlash

against how visceral and gory a lot of people reacted that John probably wished

that he had reigned it in a little bit.

But John made the movie he wanted to make.

And, you know, with the help of Rob, you know, that movie now stands a test of

time as a classic.

It's like a childlike excitement for something, which keeps you pushing to want

to get to that to want to finish that.

We were a bunch of kids.

You know, I was 26.

I think I was the oldest guy there.

Rob was 22.

I mean, we were a bunch of youngsters doing this stuff.

And we were just having fun blasting the music.

When Jimmy Hendrix had come on, I'd get acetone and put a line of acetone

around the radio and turn the lights off and light the acetone up fire.

Jimmy's playing, you bow down.

If we heard over the intercom, Eric Jensen, you have a guest at the

front, that was a signal for myself and about three other people who were not union.

To run like roaches, in the back of Heartland, Bellstar Galactica planets and

spaceships were stored.

So we'd go all the way down the back of this warehouse and just sit in the dark on

the floor.

Well, one of the union stewards came in to visit and check out the shop.

John Carpenter would come visit periodically, particularly after a

principal photography was over and he'd come over about once a week.

And we had a pile of movie magazines, the fangoria, cinephantastic, star log.

We had this desk with all the stuff.

I had found this magazine at Adrian Barboe and it appeared in topless.

A men's magazine.

I knew John was coming over and I purposely kind of buried it down a little

bit and had to page open to Adrian who was married to at the time.

And we were all just kind of waiting because John would come over and look at

those magazines all the time.

And he looked at the new fangoria and then he third one, picked up this magazine with

Adrian on top of it.

Woo!

You're cracking.

Rob, he would just be fun in the shop too.

Somebody gave him a present.

It's a tube that goes on your finger and you press flammable paper into it and a

flame shoots out of your hand.

But when he got that for a present, everyone was like watching their back

because he would be shooting that thing at everybody.

The production value is phenomenal in that film.

And Rob Botin was given a great budget.

He had a huge crew on that.

I mean, for those days, that was a gigantic crew.

30 to 40 people working on that for a well over a year.

He, in a sense, was a genius in many ways but I think it was painful for him to get

everybody to understand what he was thinking all the time.

And I think he worked really hard but grew frustrated sometimes because he had so

many ideas and he couldn't do everything.

And I know that he did have some help.

There were some production folks who came in to bring structure to it because I

think from what I heard it might have been a kind of a chaotic process as you would

expect.

There was so much in there.

It was hard to pull it all out and say, how are we going to do it?

Well, I'm working on that.

My role was kind of be the right-hand guy who plays hardball sometimes.

The most difficult part of the process for us was when are these effects going to be

ready?

You know, because we were always behind the eight ball and by the way,

at the end of the day, it's fucking fantastic.

You know, as Larry Frankl said, we couldn't get Rob to go from point A to point B.

I mean, it was...

What we were getting eventually was great but it was way, way slow and coming and

there was just no way to keep track of getting it done.

Like the thing itself, it was metastasizing.

It was morphine into other things and his fertile imagination would be adding

aspects to this development, to creature evolving.

I almost, like, had a little breakdown.

I did actually at one point towards the end.

They... I was having a hard time with being exhausted and I started...

It was starting to affect me.

And so Rob let me...

He had gotten a hotel room.

He let me go ahead and go over there and go to sleep, which almost was worse

because when I woke up, because I think Eric called me, and I woke up,

I was completely incoherent.

Rob always talks about the fact that he literally suffered from exhaustion.

It was hospitalized when the movie was wrapped, just because of the amount of

stress and strain that was put on him that he put on himself.

I'm quite sure.

Dog head that pills open.

This was the very last gag that we shot on the film.

Production had been wrapped for months.

We had completed all the other gags and this was the last little piece that we

needed to shoot.

We had a sneak preview in Las Vegas, the following week.

Fortunately, we got it in one take.

The following week, we wrapped up the heartland and we flew up to Las Vegas and

saw the sneak preview.

And the film came up four weeks later.

That's how tight it was.

Today's world with the emphasis on a digital pipeline and pre-visualization and

all that, it kind of, on the one hand, make sure things go smoothly.

But on the other hand, it doesn't invite serendipity and happenstance and

spontaneity in the creation and execution.

It kind of hammers out all of the imperfections or risk.

And as a result, it doesn't feel as alive and wet and tactile on film.

We, Gen Xers, are always, when we go into make our movies, we're always begging to

help practical effects.

Because those are the movies that we grew up with.

And then you do it and you realize the complication of having so many moving

parts to work at the same time.

And when I say moving parts, I don't think there's any movie with a creature with so

many moving parts.

with so, you know, in a single shot.

So it's insane when they achieve.

They're just insane.

We tend to be hyperbolic and we overuse words like genius.

But what boutine did was genius.

And you look at the man's career.

You look at the makeup in legend.

The makeup on Tim Curry, the makeup on Robert Picardo, who played the swamp witch.

I mean, in the biggest friggin' Panavision close-up, you can imagine that makeup is

flawless.

Who knew this?

Can't have lost all.

Butine was like on another level.

You could put them out rush more of great makeup artists.

Oh, he's there.

I think he might have his own mountain, actually.

I mean, there's obviously the Dick Smiths, who was the godfather of so many,

including Rick.

All of those guys.

Brilliant, brilliant.

Jack Pierce.

But Jack Pierce?

Yeah.

But butine, just like what a home run.

He's profoundly American.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

He has that streak of pop culture.

And he's savage.

Now, he's like...

He's the six pistols of the Ramom, sorry.

Everybody else is a lot more tame.

Ah!

The line!

The line!

I've touched under the line!

Same amount of time on the scene as the Beatles, and the same kind of massive mark

that he made on the industry.

Someone with Rob's kind of creativity, he's just not allowed to work like that

anymore.

I think he just got disillusioned with a lot of that.

I'm not familiar with that address.

Would you please repeat that?

So he decided to back away.

He does his own thing.

But not...

It's just not...

It just doesn't work in the system anymore, the way he used to like to work.

And I'll tell you, for a good decade, being in the business, we who are

practitioners of creature effects, dreaded Rob Botin's return, because he'd

get all the work.

You see, when a man bleeds, it's just his shot.

But he got in mind, McCreaty.

A little past.

But the reason to make the thing was the blood test scene.

And when does...

Even power for everybody down, real tight.

It's a scene taken almost from the novel.

There's one scene that John said he wanted to make the movie, because he loved it.

And he told Bill Lancaster that they're telling me, no matter whatever else you

do, what am I?

What you do?

Keep this scene in.

His words were, I know how to do this.

And he sure did.

What for?

For your health?

Let's rush him!

He's not gonna blow us all up!

I figured out what I needed.

Just a lot of shots.

A lot of cutaways.

And then this big monster explodes.

He ain't tying me up.

Then I'll have to kill you, child.

Then kill me.

And capsulating all the horrors, all the central conflicts and themes of

the thing, the paranoia, the mistrust of your fellow man, the power politics,

all of it.

That scene is so effective.

I mean it.

I guess you do.

So there's no way to outsmart this thing, until McCready comes up with the blood

test.

The blood from one of you things won't obey when it's attacked.

He'll try and survive.

I am not a medical doctor, obviously.

But doing a blood test is not a bad idea, at least the concept of it, because that's

one of the first things you do when somebody is infected by something.

You're trying to figure out, is there something in their bloodstream?

That's wrong.

If McCready hasn't earned the position, for the audience.

That seems...

It can't be written that way.

It would be mayhem.

It says, you came up with this thing.

Why, who are you to do that?

That was always worrisome to me.

It's like, you gotta be that guy.

You gotta be that guy.

Over there.

I remember it having a kind of reverence, if you will.

One felt like we were shooting something important.

But we're gonna find out who's the thing.

And using those great character actors' faces, intense close-ups.

Like, is it this person?

Is it this person?

It's an amazing example of editing.

With no music, by the way.

Every little piece is an individual animal.

With a built-in desire to protect its own life.

Now, this is a situation where McCready is lording in over all of us and claiming he

has all the power and only he knows for sure.

No, no, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Let's do what Max says.

And I still don't think that Clark was the kind of person who weighed the

consequences of his actions.

I'm reacting against somebody telling me what the fuck I'm supposed to do.

They don't have a right to do that.

So for me, that was the orientation.

And that's why he makes that move.

John might disagree with that.

I don't know.

This is Bullshit, Max.

Finish it, Palmer.

They're death, Max.

That doesn't mean anything to McCready at that point.

We're well-passed.

Murder being a problem here, guys.

And that's basically the philosophy.

If I need to shoot you, on the face, during a block this, I will.

That whole test he puts them through.

It's brutal, you know, but it's necessary.

And it works.

We're gonna draw a little bit everybody's blood.

And by the way, as we're...

I'm going, why didn't they just prick the finger to get a little blood?

Why'd they have to take the scalp on, cut their freaking thumbs open so much

like that?

I'm like, come on.

The thing, and many other horror films, use a particular device to increase the

tension and the anxiety in the audience.

We, as an audience, seeing a needle penetrate the flesh of a character in the

movie makes us shrink a little bit, makes us recoil when we see windows take a

scalpel and cut the flesh of his thumb so that he can squeeze the blood out.

When I see something like that, I cringe.

The character who has revealed, eventually, to be the thing embodying the

thing, I very carefully did not give him an eye light, a little glint.

His eyes appear dead.

And everyone else had that little glint of life, sort of embellished the suspense.

The lack of eye light was just really in the blood test scene.

That is such bullshit.

However, if he says so, I agree with him, 100%.

Whatever he says.

Well, the blood test is like a masterclass in Mr. Action.

That's also a lot of just, you know, what was shot on the individual characters.

That's your palette of colors to play with on the canvas, you know.

And the sound effects of the hissing copper wires and the copper wires

scratching the bottom of the plastic.

The question I have was like, you know, does McCready know?

Well, now I'm going to show you what I already know.

I'll show you what I already know.

I mean, as a watcher, I was still saying, but it could have come.

I thought I was wrong.

But I don't think that's the way McCready was feeling.

And I'm going to show you what I already know.

When they cut back to Kurt, whoops, they're close up shot.

They use multiple angles.

But then they use the same angle of the fake hand a few times because it was a

fake hand with a tube coming out the bottom.

It seems crazy, but how many years it took me to notice that Kurt Russell's left hand

is fake.

It's like the scene in misery with a sledgehammer.

You know, you're convincing the audience that what they're seeing is normal and

real.

It's for the best.

That moment when the blood leaps out of the dish is another one of the great jump

scares.

You were the only one that could have got to that blood.

We'll do you last.

It didn't just bubble.

It didn't squeal and run around in a circle like ouch.

That blood could have fucking killed you.

It's a part of my language.

We're used a hollow fiberglass hand with a petri dish edges.

And in the center was a balloon.

It really wouldn't have sculpted a little comic you can think.

It looked a little miniature snarled creature with a little tiny hands.

So the next part was where the blood drops hit the floor and start moving traveling

around.

Now that was created by a mechanical fixed guy.

He's created a gimbal using an axle from a front-drive osmo build.

And it was like a four by four table that had the same type of flooring that the set

did.

Such a simple special effect.

But it adds to the unkillability and the unapproachability of the problem.

Which is one of the problems with the thing is... I don't mean the movie.

I mean the creature is that you can't approach the enormity of the problem you

have if a single cell is the entire thing.

Palmer now.

He looks like he just got called to the principal's office.

No one in the audience would suspect that Palmer is the thing.

He seems harmless, likable, a little silly, but he's not a candidate for

possession by the alien creature.

And when you see it, I think it's a shock.

It's unwelcome, unpredictable.

If you were a serious actor, you'd have a huge inner life boiling within you.

I didn't, you know, it was the magic of movies.

When I started to manifest as the thing, I think there were grips on either end of

that sofa shaking.

Here comes another outrageous transformation.

You know, we caught Benning's before it went a little too far.

This one, we're seeing what happens when it goes beyond the Benning's face.

We fleshed a bunch of chemicals into the foam and it's swelled up.

Because it's like the head's like this hanging down.

And so it's one of those things where like, oh, that's cool.

While we created this Palmer head with a fiberglass under form, and it had little

tubes that were, that went her inside, they pumped solvent into.

Benning, which is highly carcinogenic, we found out years later.

But the Benning was swell up the foam rubber face.

And then he had the bladders with the eyes popping out.

They shot that in reverse with a stunt guy flopping down.

And he drops back down.

At one point, John was going to use the gag where you remember Fred Astaire

dancing on the walls and the ceiling?

You have the set built and then you fix the camera and then he's always dancing

here.

John wanted to do that.

He was going to have Palmer, I think, crawl up the wall on his back and across

the ceiling.

And I think the next day, it was announced that Spielberg was doing the same gag in

Poltergeist.

John scrapped that set.

Rob would come in with an idea.

I particularly remember one time him coming in and saying, I've got this idea.

And it develops the ability to kill you and kill it does in spectacular fashion.

His head parts creating a giant mouth and poor windows is toast.

It was like, how are we going to do that?

They made a puppet, articulated puppet that would kick and slam around and they

rigged up the set to break the lights to break and set to come apart.

And that thing was hysterical.

I had had a two-week break in shooting before the death scene.

So I got to go back to New York and see my friends.

I flew back in and the first thing up for the day was, you know, my death scene and

I knew it was going to take all day.

It was a tough day's work.

I mean, I was bounced around quite a bit.

John was like, you know, are you alright?

We can get a stunt man to do this.

And I said, no, no, I want to do it.

I can do it.

You know, all good horror has to have comedy.

If it doesn't have a moment of comic relief, it's just not going to work.

It's almost like a Sam Raimi movie.

It goes so crazy.

And it's so almost silly.

There's something very undignified about the way he's killed.

It's not a cool death.

Now, that's the one thing that scared me of this movie.

It's a fire setting a human being on fire and feel feeling it again.

Tony Sessory, it was the stunt man.

And unfortunately, the first time we tried to burn on him, it wasn't big enough.

So I had to tell him, hey Tony, we got to do that again.

It needs to be bigger.

And so he did it and golfed himself.

Oh, boy, I'm glad that's over.

I had a great stunt team, but in this case, I don't think anybody is anxious to

set themselves on fire and bigger.

So he was, you know, he didn't want to hear that.

Got me the hell.

Come on.

Get me out of here.

Come on.

Get me out of here.

Got me loose, damn it.

He allowed Donald Moffat to have that wonderful moment of complete, you know,

going from being Mr. Com to complete freaking out.

And then all of a sudden, and I don't know, John whispered something in his ear.

Like, okay, what was that about?

Then the next thing, you know, he played it differently.

He played it like you see it in the movie.

I know you gentlemen have been through a lot.

And when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter.

Ty, can they fucking couch?

Donald Moffat on the couch.

Hey, you never get tired of watching that.

You know, it's just the best.

The way he changed, you know, pitch and emotional reality in a split second like

that.

Just had us in stitches.

I mean, it was really like, okay!

It was a great moment.

The sequence where they're testing blood to me is really right up there with the

deer hunter.

With the narrow and Christopher Walken putting a gun to each other's heads.

I love you.

I'd rate those two scenes as the two most paranoid inducing scenes in cinema.

It's maybe the best directing carpenters ever done.

I have memories of John sitting alone in the editing room.

On a Saturday morning, no one else around.

That's a movie all up.

Not quite willing to let go of the scene yet.

Until he runs it through his fingers.

And he's running it slowly, frame editing.

Taking his time, taking the trim boxes off the shelf, making the edits himself,

the splices himself to the frame.

Until he gets it the way he wants it.

There's some busy out here all by himself.

Childs.

We're going out to get Blair the test.

If he tries to make it back here and we're not with him.

Burn it.

Blair has been busy.

I think that Blair had access to the outpost.

I think that Blair was in the shed, but he built underground tunnels.

He could have been doing some things, sabotaging blood.

Palmer and his sneaky way.

Hey Blair!

You down there?

You got something for you.

It's not just that the thing has Blair's memory.

Blair now knows how to build spaceships out of helicopter parts.

Thinking about that scene, when he tells McCreaty, get me out of here.

And let me out of the shed.

I want to get out of here.

It's so well done.

And Wilford Brimmley doesn't overplay it.

I want to come back inside, don't you understand it?

Is he already been the thing?

Even in that moment, was he the thing?

Well, he was.

And he's building this scape craft under his shed.

What is it?

Something he's been making.

It's a ship of some kind.

So once a thing takes you over, you now know how to build a spaceship?

Just because you majored in biology, did we find out that he minored in

magnetic transportation or something like that, you know?

But the knowledge of all of those planets that you've been to, once you become taken

over, you now have whatever that organism experience before it.

You now have that in your DNA.

Where was he trying to go?

Any place but here?

Is it here to take over the Earth?

It doesn't seem so to me.

It seems like that was a mistake.

They crashed here.

And now that they've revived, thanks to the Norwegians taking that block of eyes

out, they want to get off this planet.

I mean, that's what it seems to me, based on that little escape ship that

Blair is building.

But it's never answered.

We got back inside and blew the generator.

Six hours, it'll be a hundred below in here.

Let's get colder than minus a hundred Fahrenheit, talking Fahrenheit,

which is about 73, I think.

Well, that's suicide!

Not for that thing.

One to three is now.

What I found was, on a minus 100 day, that wasn't the worst.

The worst would be like minus 80 to minus 90 with winds.

Where the winds blowing hard.

And boy, I felt that.

Whether we make it or not, we can't let the things freeze again.

Maybe we'll just warm things up on them around here.

Like, this is the end of the movie.

We're gonna blow some stuff up.

But he still throws this creepy moment in there with Blair just digging his fingers

into Gary's face.

And killing off another character in a way that makes you squirm.

Those are actually raw boating's fingers in there, and with a prosthetic,

they were sculpted with little stretch marks for the fingers that Rob put in there.

You're watching a man trying to resist it and losing the battle to such a nightmare

of fantasy concept.

It's very purposeful.

The nose of the cook is possibly the most stereotyped idea of a black character at

the time.

He's skating around the corridors.

He's playing loud music on his boom box.

Usually, the cook and the kitchen, they are really important.

They have this god-like quality in a team.

You know, you want to have the favor of the cook.

I kind of like the idea that perhaps he's on the verge of getting into trouble in

South Central L.A.

and he's been sent out to the Antarctic to keep him out of the gang culture there.

The tikikata actually, I think, transcends that stereotype.

He's very sympathetic.

I think that's our child outside the main entrance of the camp.

So he always seems to pop up at the right time with the question that we want

answered so that somebody can actually answer it.

Why are the Norwegians doing this?

Why have they gone crazy?

Why have they come here?

Maybe we're at war with Norweg.

So the real cold in Alaska had not settled in yet.

I was never uncomfortable.

T.K.

Carter hated it.

I'm from Beverly Hills.

No, I don't know.

I don't do this.

You know what I mean?

He just...

Really good guy.

And really out of his element up there.

There's some Saturday nighters there that are pretty...

Kind of like old Hollywood.

Kind of got killed that night stuff, you know what I mean?

T.K.

was funny and very good and creative.

And T.K.

was just a good guy.

I had a great time with.

Where are we going?

Up to my shack.

What the hell for?

He could make me laugh.

That's for sure.

Reading the novella was very interesting because it filled in a lot of gaps.

Or a lot of what people like to call plot holes.

For example, you found out what happened to Norweg.

The cook.

Nalls, you know, the guests could afford to do it.

Each shot one test with a box monster didn't like it.

The box monster.

It was a head and intestines.

They were on top of this crate.

Nalls was walking by.

We had a latex dental dam and a flexible vacuum tube for a vacuum for pulls inside

of it.

We just kind of like lassoed him with it and yanked him into the box.

Visually, it did look good, but the mechanical part didn't really work that well.

It was kind of awkward.

It kind of, you could tell that it was a hose inside of a rubber bag.

So Nalls just walks off, you know.

Alone to this and said, you don't see anything.

All those ambiguities sort of piled up on the doorstep of the final scene, I think.

And it caused a problem for audiences.

I love this sort of desolate and austere and remote style of the film.

It doesn't let you in very easily.

You're sort of a witness to it.

And it makes you do some work.

And it leaves unanswered questions.

I said, how's it?

There's a lot of elements in the thing that add to that feeling that you get when

you watch the movie.

There's a very, very specific air about the thing.

And, you know, it starts with Marakoni's score.

Begin with, I mean, a confession.

I never wanted a John Carpenter to compose the music for this movie.

But, by himself, that is.

I mean, I love John's music, particularly his score for a song, please think 13.

John's original idea for music was to take the original Demetri Tiampton score from

the original.

And redo it electronically in the John Carpenter way, which sounds like a more

interesting idea to me now.

The studio did not want me to do the music.

It was never they just didn't want to happen.

I think they thought it was like an amateur or something.

The Stuart Collins suggested Marakoni because he was available and that is

brilliant.

I ended up making the deal when John's absence.

You know, I was the one speaking to Marakoni and he accepted the terms,

which is $40,000 as a fee.

And then we would come to Rome and that he would do the film.

I didn't speak Italian, he didn't speak English.

I went over to Rome to meet him and he played several piano pieces for the main

title of the movie.

And I thought that's didn't think they worked.

So I said, can you do something with fewer notes?

Or John played for him?

His scene for Escape from New York on the piano.

And he was listening.

There was no communication.

More communication between John and Enio.

From that time, for the moment in Rome, to the time Enio set foot on stage 10 at

Universal in late March.

Scoring session begins with a 60-piece orchestra.

John was bothered by someone what he was hearing on stage that day.

And he was needing music to drive the film.

That's what he was worried about.

More conny.

Scary music that would drive the action.

And he, not sure he got that.

We finished the session.

John shake sounds of more conny.

You know, says goodbye.

And heads out the studio door without saying goodbye to me.

I know where he's going.

He's going to work on pieces that he thinks he needs outside of what he's certain.

Which is what happened.

The two scores.

More conny.

John.

John's additions.

Completely separate from one another.

Composed separately.

Works separately.

Without the knowledge of the other.

What a way to start the movie out.

And then the bass comes in.

And then the helicopter appears.

And you're going, what the fuck is going on here?

It's a great score.

It's very spare.

And it's very electronic in places.

I think it's abetted by more conny orchestrations.

But at its very base, it's very much a John Carpenter score.

Such a great example of music becoming an indelible part of a film.

After more conny saw the film in Rome four months later when the first cue of years

is John's.

Underneath the titles of the film.

Underneath his credit.

He said the universe was going in Rome and read.

He said, why, why didn't John just do it himself?

Why did he beat it all?

Well, I knew you because we needed you.

And there's enough there.

That makes the case.

But if you listen to the soundtrack, it is orchestral.

Here's a number of pieces.

Only the beginning and ending of the synth.

You know, I never imagined that we ever got a glimpse of what the creature

actually looked like.

It never reveals itself in its final form.

It's a sentient creature that is just simply using the proteins in the DNA of

whatever its host is.

In order to replicate and move itself forward.

It's not the predator to take the mask off.

Right?

Like...

It's possible that the idea of form is something very human.

And it's like something beyond our comprehension.

In the... it doesn't have any physical form that we can relate to.

So what you have to remember is the 1982 film is not who goes there.

So who goes there?

The alien was given a very specific form.

It was locked in the ice.

It was given tentacles.

It had three glowing red eyes.

It was kind of a bit like a weird gorilla type creature that was running around.

You had no idea what the fuck it was going to look like.

And then when you see, you know, the end with Blair and the jaws, it's.

.. you never really understood what the true form of the alien is.

Because it has no form.

It's just taken over life.

And Dale Clapper's written was skipped.

That was meant to be the final form of the thing.

I suppose if there is a final form, and we never talked about there being a

final form, if there is one, it's the Blair monster at the end of the film.

But not really.

If you're watching this film for the first time, you're kind of absolutely

traumatized by everything that's happened.

So when the Blair monster turns into a sort of...

like, all you can eat type monster away, it's got all the things incorporated.

It's got dogs.

It's got the man.

It's got everything.

Plus other stuff as well.

It's almost a relief.

If you think it's not as icky as Norris or Palmer.

To be fair, you're not thinking at this point.

You're just thinking, kill the fuck.

I never felt that there was anything missing from that scene.

You know, I liked the stop-motion aspect of how big the tentacle was and the floor

exploding and all the physical effects.

I thought were fantastic.

Rob asked Randy Cook to animate the Blair monster coming up.

Randy Cook did a stop-motion model, and that the thing, once it would rip

open, that that little dog creature sort of leapt out and sort of crawled towards

McCready.

It's interesting, and it's cool, and I know that they shot it.

I don't know why they didn't use it.

It didn't work, because it's animated.

I just did not work.

I don't think that's its favorite form of presentation, but we felt like some of the

shots needed to be supplemented this way.

Maybe a pullback, a big master shot, that would reveal more of the thing.

You hear them talk about, oh, we tried to do this.

We couldn't get the Blair monster.

There was more?

What?

You're like, what are you talking about?

They had all these other monsters they wanted to do, but they ran out of money

and they ran out of time.

My God.

The problem is that when we had to create the actual life sites puppet, we had to

change the proportions from the original design, and it was much larger stomach

than what Randy had spent months and months creating this stop-motion animation.

All right, well, and at the end, a 20-foot version of a creature appears.

And then you kind of go, like, where does it get that much mass?

It has all the other creatures on it, right?

Like, it's got the dog, it's got various heads.

So theoretically, it's an amalgam of all of their protein and all of their body

mass.

That to me is a little bit of a tricky concept.

That was sort of a thing, a trope, well, a sub-trope, I suppose, in that era

where you would have, like, when the creature, the final monstrosity is

revealed, it's kind of an amalgam of all the other scary things you've seen, right?

There's, like, a dog coming out of the middle, and I think Rob was inside all in

plastic because it was all going to be a big, slimy mess.

We had the jaw of it on the side.

We had the facial expressions.

We had the articulated arms.

The body rips open, and a dog comes out.

We had 62 puppeteers working on that.

We were bringing in anybody we could find.

I brought my brother in.

I mean, friends and friends.

There were people on pumps for fluids, and there was laborer, and, literally,

people with hands through appendages.

And it was a very tight people got to know each other very well.

One of the things that's fascinating when it was the idea that two things separated

would maybe not be the same, right?

Because at a certain point, they have absorbed different enough things that they

develop their own characteristics.

This one can turn into things that this one can't because they've absorbed

different items.

Because they're really only the sum of what they've consumed.

I remember the VHS years where I kind of couldn't tell that half of it was supposed

to be Blair's face.

John had to go hand in hand to the university to get the extra $100,000 to

finish the Blair Monster.

By that time, production had been wrapped for months.

We were just doing all this.

We were just waiting on us.

The studio was getting worried.

I think one of the things that happened as a result of the thing was practical

effects became the star of a show for so many movies.

Rick Baker gets credit for changing the face of practical effects with American

werewolf and winning that first Oscar.

And the thing not being eligible because they know it has to be an actor in makeup

for it to win best makeup.

It changed how filmmakers deployed practical effects for at least the next decade.

I've actually got a whole list of movies that are clearly either influenced by the

thing or just complete rip-offs of the thing.

And one of the things is Predator.

If you think how the movie starts, you have the spaceship coming in from deep space.

It doesn't crash, but it kind of drops apart that crash lands.

We have the same question on the Predator movies.

Is the Did the Predator fly this ship?

Yeah, okay, he flew the ship or some other Predators flew the ship.

Did they build the ship?

Did guys with loincloths build the ships?

You have a team of unknown guys going into the jungle and alien environment looking

for another similar team.

And the Predator is always invisible.

You never really see it.

It's trying to remain hidden.

So many tropes from the Predator is ticked off by the thing.

If Kurt Russell was the star of they live, instead of Roddy Piper, I think that movie

probably would have done better than it did.

I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.

Although again, eventually it finds its audience.

He's pulling up away layers literally in they live and revealing the real world as

it is underneath the surface.

I think they live is actually a great comp for the quintessential John Carpenter

movie and that his thematics are about finding the dark world underneath our own.

There are films like The Faculty which really riffed on it.

Take it.

No way, man.

Come on, man.

If you're not an alien, you've got nothing to worry about.

Gave it another version of the blood test scene.

There's nods to it in the faculty.

I mean, everybody references that scene because it's just too iconic.

You know, when I made cabin fever, I told Carpenter that cabin fever is

probably more of a remake of the thing than the thing is a remake of the thing.

They put Jordan Lad in the shed that's putting Blair in the shed.

I mean, there's entire shots that I took literally just stealing it.

I compare the mist to the thing quite often.

Those movies are very, very similar.

I think they both have a very, very bleak, oppressive tone.

Both of those movies and in a way that you walk out of the theater going, oh, Mike.

Like, there's no, like, hey, let's go get some ice cream after the movie.

Well, the mist is your thing in a way.

Yeah.

Very much so.

They're ordinary people who become extraordinary by the obstacles and the

challenges that they face.

And that's what makes his movie so effective and so powerful.

And I'd say the same thing about Stephen King's work.

When I read the first draft of the mist, I threw the script across the room when I

got to the ending.

And I was like, oh, how can you end a movie?

It's not the kind of movie that you really relish experiencing over and over again.

Until you start appreciating, you know, the masterful filmmaking of Frank and of

course John.

So I consider those two movies kind of brother and sister.

Quentin Tarantino makes the hatefully.

He uses the cues that Morriconi wrote for the thing.

And he makes movies set in the snow with people trapped in a cabin.

It's the closest replication of the thing.

It's the Quentin Tarantino and a Mexican standoff version of it.

But it's very much influenced by the thing.

One of them fells is not what he says.

Tarantino made everybody watch the thing before we did a play.

Both he and Robert Rodriguez when we were doing death proof, you know, they talked

on and on and on about John.

And the movies that John and I had done together.

But something about hateful hate musically, because Quentin's very musical, right?

That sound, that musical sound was in his head.

Music times over.

Of other projects that are... I think tipping their hat to the thing.

My version is this true detective recently, the Jodie Foster.

It's a big chunk of frozen human beings.

And that looks like a raw, boating special to me, you know.

In that country, there is a shot of episode one of Jodie Foster talking about

the case.

And the thing is right behind her on a shelf.

It's a TV show and it's a murder mystery.

And so it's a different animal.

But that said, the seed of it all, the seed of my show is the thing.

The moment that I made the decision that I wanted to create this version of True

Detective in the Arctic, I couldn't stop the idea of an interactive research

station with only men.

And something horrible happens to them.

And their twisted bodies are found in the eyes.

So there is no night country without the thing.

Very simply put.

I don't think I could look at the ending objectively anymore.

It's just that's the ending of the thing.

At this point, it's like you're playing your favorite record.

You're not going to be like, oh, fuck that last song.

You're going to play the whole record.

And I think that, again, the mic plue of it all comes through in that final Blair

Monster a little bit.

It's a little cartoonish.

If the film had ended right there with defeating the Blair Monster, I would not

have been as happy I think.

The prior scares were more grotesque as they were a bit more personal.

So now you're fighting a real full-scale monster.

Harder to do than ever in physical effects.

But very, very effectively done.

And a very satisfying end to that creature getting blown to some other rings.

When I throw the dynamite at the thing, John and I were trying to think of

something.

I just turn around, throw it.

And I said, it's really monster shit crazy now, right?

He said, yeah, and I said, oh, I want to just say, I fuck you too.

I'm throwing this thing at him.

Fuck you too.

I was extremely proud of the thing, but the studio objected to the ending

because it was uncertain.

And they were right.

The audience is hate uncertainty.

But I didn't care because the real ending of the movie would be everybody's dead,

or everybody's the thing.

So I didn't want to do that.

So I can believe a big question or...

John had thoughts about it.

They weren't reservations.

He just had thoughts about it.

He was playing it out in his head.

And we'd start talking about it.

Do you really want to wait?

Not the only one.

He always knows the question that's being asked of whatever he's shooting.

That this might be good for this moment.

And he has a partner in crime there.

I always opt for...

Well, let's go with what we feel is right.

Maybe they won't even get it for 20 years.

The ending, as we shot it, was pretty straightforward.

To allow the viewer the opportunity to question, to hypothesize...

Where were you, John?

It felt like a Leone ending, where you'd have two gunmen just sitting there.

The first one that happened to Blink would get it.

It's like the chest stalemate.

It's the ending of a chapter.

It might not be the ending of the entire story.

I find it tremendously bleak.

I mean, these guys are going to freeze to death.

I mean, that's just...

But they've given everything to try and defeat a threat to humanity.

That makes them tremendously noble.

You know, and these are blue-collar, lunch-pail working-class guys who are in

this really crappy job.

But they stand up to fight for all of humanity.

It's not one thing, then, you know.

You cannot close it when one word is so powerful.

Why is that a temperature up all over the camp?

Won't last long, though.

That's the choice of an assured filmmaker who knows what kind of story he wants to

tell.

As I understand it, some of these alternate endings were kind of entertained

to satisfy a studio note.

The studio spent the last few weeks before release trying to get me to change the

ending.

Didn't change the thing.

Because it's a apocalypse time.

And when it comes to the ending of the film, which is nihilistic, I mean,

I shouldn't forget the problems we were having.

We're being felt a quarter miles to our east at Warner Brothers by Ridley Scott,

who was having ending problems and tone problems with his own, with Playbar.

And for exactly the same reasons.

I don't know how Ridley, you know, fixed his problem, although I hated it.

I didn't know how long we'd have together.

Who does?

John actually saw a shot as a safety.

A shot of Kurt getting a blood test.

And finding out he wasn't the thing.

Was his protection against the studio.

At the end of the day, Kurt Russell's last shot on this movie.

And it was just a long, low, dolly shot down one of Universal Heartland's quarters.

In which the camera told me pivots and stops and reveals McCready.

At the end of the room meant to be a hospital.

Dressed pretty much the way it wasn't the last scene.

Surrapping over his shoulder and still ice -borne.

Nothing else said.

No child.

Nobody else.

No extras in the scene.

Just this one shot.

And underneath it, early, you would hear helicopter approaching.

Excited voices.

Oh, we never cut it in.

I didn't like it.

John hated it.

And the most important thing about this shot.

This new ending is that we did not tell the studio that we had shot it.

I thought the idea of suddenly having...

Kurt, you know, be the hero and survive was just, no, come on.

That's not this story.

You haven't been watching close enough, you know?

And we won that argument and we lost that battle.

Because they didn't support the film.

If you meet a horror fan to this day, they go, who do you think was a thing?

Oh, you like harm movies?

Yeah, what's your favorite?

Okay, the thing.

Okay, what who do you think was a thing?

Was he, you know, was it child?

Was it McCreating?

Oh, fuck you, man.

That's what John would say.

Yeah, no.

You're not gonna do that.

Not before lunch.

Take me to dinner and we'll talk.

I'm not doing that.

Me, I think they're the two human survivors.

And they've sacrificed everything to try and defeat this.

So many theories have come out.

Is it that McCreating hands across the bottle of alcohol to drink?

Never drinking himself.

And we know he's been throwing Molotov cocktails everywhere.

So it's very likely that might be fuel.

Is it McCreaty?

Is it child's?

Or is the thing lurking somewhere in the remnants of the, you know, compound?

Don't you think that the ending is the perfect example of it being a Russia test

of who you are?

No, yeah.

I mean, that's, that's a great thing when, when people say about the Translavian.

It was only her imagination.

It was not, it was all real.

I say that tells you as much about you as it tells you about me.

Let's face it, they're both gonna die.

How will we make it?

Maybe we should.

What do we learn here?

We see all this mayhem and all of this horror and a station blown to smithereens

and these two guys sitting among the fires that are dying out passing a bottle back

and forth.

I wanted to believe that they had made noble sacrifices and every time you would

discover, think about going down an alley where child's was the thing, you'd go,

oh, I really like child's.

I don't want that to happen.

Crock a shit.

You know, of course over the years I've heard all these theories, but why

everybody thinks it's me?

I don't think it was me and I don't remember.

I think we filmed it both ways as if it was one of us.

And then if we didn't know, you know, and frankly, I don't know the take that's

in the movie, which of those takes it is?

You know, if anyone knows, John only knows.

Her Russell told me that they didn't know how to get out.

They had one ending and then another ending and he goes, I'm nearly a daily basis.

They'd come in with like, okay, this is how it's gonna end.

But I think Kurt said that the ending of the movie as is it was Kurt Russell's

suggestion of how it ends.

When you sit down and say, there's a final line, why don't we just sit there and see

what happens?

You know what you're saying?

You know, I think I wrote that line.

We were just tossing different ideas around for weeks, and we came down to that

whole thing, kind of evolved.

It works.

It really works.

It's not like a child's ran out into the storm, looking for Blair, and then got

things, and then, like, snuck back in, and then, like, put on fresh clothes,

and, you know, came out again.

It's just so we could fool Kurt.

Oh, yeah.

What's that make sense to me?

Have you, have you columboid?

Yeah.

I'd like to think McCready's human.

I love McCready so much.

I didn't want to think that the thing got him.

The child might be a thing, and he's just waiting to see.

But then why doesn't child show himself?

For the longest time, I was sure that it could, you know, as a child, that it

couldn't be McCready, because he's the guy.

He's her guy, right?

He's Kurt Russell, and then you grow up, and you realize, yeah, you missed him for

a bunch of the movie.

He was not there.

And he has been so proactive to destroying the thing, which could be the ultimate

strategy.

There's an interesting possibility there that I don't really, that I don't reveal,

that I don't talk about.

Then I think the audience has not considered.

So that's a little brilliant.

We went out after.

We got lost in the store.

So people write to me all the time.

They know everything about every frame of the film, and they go, because this

happened and that happened and this happened.

That must mean that it's either this or this, right?

I go.

I have this idea.

It's difficult to pick which lane you want to go in.

Then the Dark Horse Comics Childs was the thing.

It wasn't very satisfying to me.

What was satisfying to me was the idea that these two guys died to save the world.

Unless our present existence is going to be threatened, the thing wouldn't show

itself.

When everybody says, oh, no smoke comes out of child's mouth.

It's like that to me is the dumbest reason of all.

Because if you've ever sat in front of a campfire in the cold, if the wind is

blowing away from me, then you'll see the condensation of it.

But if you're sitting in front of the fire, heat is coming in my direction.

You're not going to see anything.

That's just science.

I just cannot believe any of this food or bullshit.

My standard answer is, it's so if you think so.

But it wouldn't me.

We were approached by the sci-fi channel to write this mini-series sequel.

And 19 years later, I hope I'm still hoping to maybe get to do that someday.

But the cogs of Hollywood, you sometimes get caught.

But what we were all really fascinated by and excited about the potential of with

television was the possibility of depicting Blair's prediction.

U.S.

number 31 calling McMurdo.

We started our story with the idea that maybe there was this Russian outpost,

not so far away, that picked up what Windows was broadcasting.

They come to outpost 31.

And they find the little shelter where McCreedy and Childs were.

And they basically just find them there.

Like pointing guns at each other, McCreedy's got the bottle in his hand,

and they're just frozen to death.

And so they died paranoid and frozen and pointing guns at each other.

But they were both human, and they were both heroes.

It's kind of like bringing alien to Earth.

You know, it's like we wanted to bring that strain, that organism mutating

organism to the United States.

And not to a big city, but to an isolated little town.

It was about a small town in the desert that has been infected and has been

quarantined.

So you're very much trapped in this town with these people.

And it was more about not so much solving the mysteries of the original film,

because we wanted to move on from that.

It was more figuring out things like, if you're infected, do you realize you're

infected?

What's it like to be infected?

It was a really good script.

David wrote a really, really terrific script.

And it was very much in the world in the wheelhouse of John Carpenter.

We had that vibe.

One of the ideas that Frank had that he was a lot of fun to write was at the end

of the film, we wanted to have a swarm of the spider heads.

It's like what Cameron, who's another genius, and I use that word advisedly.

You know, it's what he did with aliens.

He took something that was brilliant, and he didn't just rehash it.

As so many knockoffs did, he expanded it.

And we wound up revisiting it much later at a time when movie stars were doing

weekly TV shows.

And so I rewrote the pilot episode so that when the Russians get their child's and

the creature gone, we don't know what happened to them.

And then the idea was, and again, this is just me pitching my head cannon

because we never got this far, would be at the end of the first season.

We've met this new character.

Her name was Ann Blackburn.

She was sort of like the CDC specialist who goes out.

And what if at the end of the first season, you had this scene where she goes

out and she's driving to the woods.

You don't know where she's going.

And she comes up to this cabin out in the woods in the middle of nowhere,

completely off the grid.

And she goes up the door and knocks, and the door opens.

And she says, are you R.J.

McCready?

And Kurt Russell comes out with a shotgun and goes, who wants to know?

There's a lot of movies that leave you hanging.

And you go, God damn it.

But this one leaves you hanging and you don't go, God damn it.

You go, Jesus, I wonder why.

I wonder what I...

It really continues to keep you thinking about it.

If you're worried about me, we've got any surprises for each other.

I don't think we're a much shape to do anything about it.

How do you ponder about the questions of the cosmos?

Sit down and drink, man.

Yeah.

The fire won't go.

You will die and everything will move on.

Yeah.

It's so beautiful.

Yeah.

It's very French.

Oh, yeah.

It's very European.

It's very European.

It's no wonder the Europeans love this guy.

Yeah.

They have sourdough, and they have carbon.

Movies today are so spoon-fed.

They have to have a satisfying ending.

Well, that's tie up.

And they don't want the studios don't want movies testing them.

That's why movies are so boring, because they cut all the edges off as a

result, audience are starting to reject movies.

And they're going back to the old ones, because the old ones had mystery.

And there's no movie that did it better than the thing.

It's a true mystery movie.

I asked John when he was on the show.

I don't want to know the answer, but I just want to know if there is an answer.

And he said, yes, there's an answer.

And I said, and can I know the answer from watching the movie closely?

And he said, yes.

It gets more and more, I guess, more and more interesting.

As time goes on, I'd be like, well, well, nobody's had any sort of definitive

answer.

They want to know who survived, who's the human Indian.

And I'm not telling them.

And that's what's kept this movie alive.

Is that question more?

And it's still talked about today.

And if I ever give up the secret of who's the human Indian, I'll destroy it.

Why don't we just...

way here for a little while.

See what happens.

An alien creature had frozen.

But not to death.

I began getting postcards of my newspaper office from readers telling me that John

Carpenter's new movie, I guess they'd seen it in the preview, was one of the most

disgusting films ever made.

What's interesting about the reaction is that the questions asked now out of wonder

by fans.

Who's who at the end, how did this happen?

We're asked an anger by the audiences in previews, you know, 42 years ago.

The first preview, I remember, one person punching, you know,

a card, pre-recardive pencil angrily, and a writing, you know, you forgot the

other half of the movie.

I remember the reviews were savage, because I remember the reviews saying all

the characters were the same, and the gore was the only distinction.

I just thought, how can somebody misunderstand?

I movie so much.

The critics were nearly all oldish white male at that time, who'd been weaned on

real cinema, you know, like autorism, Robert Breathore.

They thought special effects, I think, were vulgar.

And anything with a lot of spectacular special effects had to be despised to a

certain degree.

It wasn't taken seriously for sure.

Goldie and I got together somewhere around that time.

Somebody made a suggestion to see the thing.

And Goldie's mom, who was just a great person.

But a real, no bullshit, mom too.

She was great.

Just till it should.

She got about 20 minutes into the arrangement.

I can't.

I can't.

She just got out of my life.

I don't like it going, so yeah, this is not the right crowd.

But that was true for a lot of people.

They couldn't see the story of paranoia because they couldn't get past that monster.

They could not get past the monster.

You know, we held a, you know, a friend's, a friend's screening,

the first public screening of a film.

For anyone other than ourselves in late March, when including Deborah Hill,

Nick Castle, and a whole bunch of folks came to it.

The reaction to that, and I think was, you know, is that John had taken things a

step too far.

Those actually Deborah Hill's words.

It wasn't poltergeist on ice, you know, which is probably what the studio is

looking for.

I'll tell you exactly why it didn't find an audience.

The thing did not find an audience because it came out, what, three weeks after ET?

He is afraid.

He's totally alone.

ET, we were, I'd never cried in a movie before, before ET.

We were all phone home, we all reached his pieces, everyone else was like,

like ET mania was everywhere.

Oh, it was the biggest thing ever.

People like, literally there were stories that I took my, I took my mute son to ET,

and at the end of it, he turned to me and said, I love you mommy, and now he's,

now he goes to Dartmouth.

You know, whatever, like, people were being healed by ET.

Really, there were stories, like, urban myths about people who like,

walked out without their canes after seeing ET.

and the thing is the exact opposite of that.

Well, it's okay.

I mean, I'm not a huge fan of ET.

I didn't believe a minute of that creature, of the Humpty Dumpty there.

Who, who, who?

But boy, the audience got it, they loved it.

It was Disney, it was Disney alien, kind of.

And then, that's what Stephen does so well.

He senses the audience.

What did he say?

He thought the audience needed an up cry.

Of course, I didn't think that.

That's not my thinking.

They needed to be shaken and scared.

Oh, it's.

The genre filmmaking machine was operating at full capacity.

It was so good.

Every weekend, there was another movie coming out.

Star Trek II, Wrath of Khan, The Road Warrior, Creepshow, Blade Runner.

It was like every weekend.

It was probably a strong pill to swallow in the world of media and culture to go

right into the thing, which is one of the greatest paranoid horror films ever made.

Trapped in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica.

It could not escape.

I thought there was going to be a big response to it.

And I was disappointed when I first saw it.

Not with the work on screen, but just with the way it was handled.

And man, it is a betting.

It's the warmest place to hide.

So the thing is like an R-rated movie, there's no monster in the poster.

We love the poster, but at the time, it's like I can't really see the monster.

It was a winter movie released in June.

So I think if that movie had come out, you know, a little bit farther away from

ETC, it would have done better at the box office.

I also think the fact that it didn't do well is one of the reasons people left a

champion in it.

So when it didn't connect with an audience, you know, it hit John Hart.

I told him, because he seemed so down, I said, look, and I believed it.

This is going to be a classic in 10 or 20 years.

And he was just very dismissive about it.

Had the thing been a hit, I would have been offering a lot of stuff.

And I wouldn't have lost a job, a fire starter.

That eventually got made, but we were actually going to do it.

And we were, I don't know, like, eight weeks away from photography or

something like that.

We got called up to the tower.

A guy by the name of Tom Mount was one of the production executives there.

He says, I can remember.

We realized the obligation that we have to you both, but we decided not to proceed

with the picture.

To what?

You know, it was like, so, and then that was it.

John and I got up and walked out.

Dead silence into the elevator down the elevator.

Back to the Elvis didn't say a fucking word for, I don't know, 15-20 minutes.

He risked and, in many ways, lost a lot.

Because of this bet, because he will probably tell you that the point of

inflection when he started to lose in the capacity to do exactly what he wanted.

The one of the things that's really cool to me about John Carpenter is he didn't

sacrifice.

Appreciating it 40 years later, 50, 60 years later, 70 years, 100 years later.

For maybe it being more well accepted, then it ever would have been that.

I think it was, uh, it attained the highest honor, I've seen a horror movie

attained, which is the audience first rejects it.

Because it's breaking every boundary.

One of the few times in my lifetime, where I probably 10, 15 times it's

happened, where you know you're in front of a classic.

Now, you believe you're watching the going with the wind of brutality?

I was absolutely blown away, and I left kind of devastated and depressed,

because Rob and I are about the same age, and I thought, oh, my God, is this what

one has to do to make a mark in the industry?

I saw it very stoned, because I'm from Amsterdam.

On a VHS, I rented with some friends at my house.

I'm gonna see a horror movie, and everybody was just laughing.

And I remember seeing it and being completely, completely fixed into it.

I immediately recognized, this is something truly weird.

Seeing a movie the first time is a casual date, right?

You see it three times you're dating.

You see it more than six times you're married.

The thing fans are the most enduring.

They are so loyal, and I thank each and every one of them, because they keep it

going.

They keep it going.

The fact that John Carpenter has not been forthcoming about answering the mysteries

of this film, makes it one that you can come back to and experience in a new way

and think about in new ways.

How many movies from that time?

Can you say that about that?

Get more interesting for the audience.

The first thing we do as mammals is trying to figure out a puzzle.

What are you going to do with a puzzle, live it alone?

Every piece of art is a puzzle.

You see a painting and somebody's looking out of a frame you want to know what

they're looking at.

It's unfinished business, and the film hasn't finished, and it hasn't absolutely

finished in popular culture, because we've been talking about it ever since.

I think on the simplest level what it means to me is it's one of those movies

that inspired me to want to make movies.

The thing is like my one, Harry Metzalli.

It's my feel-good movie.

I am entirely absorbed.

Like I've been absorbed by the thing itself.

The reason why it stands up over time is the ensemble led by a great movie star

backed by incredible artistic precision.

You feel like you're one of these men who strap together.

So it puts you, you know, without 3D goggles, it places you in that camp.

You live that experience with them.

People have a kind of spiritual experience as they watch this film that makes them

want to watch it again.

I think it's a great storyline.

In the realm of imagination, this could happen.

Where you just can't stop diving and going into it and go, wait, wait, wait a minute,

wait a minute, wait a minute.

And what's great about the movie itself in that regard, I think, that's fun to talk

about is that it was made that way.

It was intentional.

Every now and then if it won't come so long, like that, it does what that film did.

And if you're a part of it, you're just goddamn lucky.

John is a pioneer, and I covered wagon pondering by the fire home.

What lies beyond the horizon?

I mean, that's what's quintessentially American about him.

He faces fear and horror and outsized antagonism.

Without, well, let's tackle it one big at a time.

The thing did something for me.

The people hating it.

It made me re-examine myself.

And I realized I can't lose myself by trying to please people.

I'm gonna hang on to me.

And I'm so proud of that movie.

I don't care what they thought.

That's...

It's hard to talk about it now, but that's the truth.

That's absolute truth.

For over 40 years, we've asked the same question.

Was it McCready?

Was it child?

Was it both?

Well, never known.

The thing is a masterpiece of horror.

No way I know and have special effects, just creativity, imagination, producing

one of the finest films that were probably ever light with the scene cinema.

So, thank you, Mr. Carpenter.

Thank you to the cast and to create a VC of put together that's amazing documentary.

Given there's a much more in-depth look at how this film is put together and the

story's behind it.

My favorite scene from the thing is definitely one nor is this getting CPR.

And his abdomen rips open into a giant mouth with gnashing teeth and of course

the chaos that ensues shortly thereafter.

I think it is scenes like that that make the thing so relaunchable these special

effects are incredible and they never get old.

So, my favorite scene in the film would have to be the dog kennel scene.

And the reason I'd back this project is because it promises to be a very in-depth

documentary.

And I want this film to get as much exposure as humanly possible.

And the reason it's so relaunchable for me is because the great ensemble cast

atmosphere setting and Rob Boteen and his team really show what practical special

effects can truly be like.

this is the pinnacle of practical special effects and it is my favorite film.

I love the thing.

The favorite part of it is absolutely the practical effects.

They're some of the best I've ever seen and they probably will remain some of the

best I've ever made.

Awesome movie.

My favorite moment in John Carpenter's thing was probably the lowest tech special

effect I've ever seen.

And that was when McCready was trying to determine who the thing was disguised as

using blood samples and petri dishes.

When he stuck that hot needle in the dish and the blood sample jumped out,

I literally jumped out of my chair of foot.

It was still to this day the scariest moment I've ever seen on film.

My dad was the very first person to ever show me John Carpenter's the thing when I

was three years old.

My favorite scene was the dog is revealed and it's like this an affirmation of like

three dogs.

Hands down?

The fibula.

Because that caught me by some price.

It was so well put together.

And the head's flat in the legs.

It is probably the most iconic horror film in existence.

I was looking at you getting the creative input to see how things were done.

When I found out about the thing expanded and the passion behind it and what it

endeavored to do for my favorite movie of all time, backing it was no brainer.

Perfect companion for something that means so much to so many.

No, if he'll excuse me, it's time to watch the thing again.

Never gets boring.

Watching an over and over again, you still have this feeling.

Like, you miss something.

Maybe there's an answer that they hid within the movie of who's an alien and

who's human.

Are they going to survive?

How are they going to get out of this?

Watching it was someone for the first time is never done.

It is always fun.

It is always a great joy within my life to introduce this movie to someone new.

I love this thing.

It is the greatest movie ever made.

You've got to be fucking kidding.

One of the best lines in the film, one of the most memorable in cinema

history, one of the most standout scenes in cinema history.

I've been watching this film since I was a kid.

Amazing story.

Amazing act.

Amazing direction.

Stand out at the special effects.

Ground breaking special effects.

I want to keep them watching this film.

I love it.

I'm so happy.

I'm going to put this documentary.

This is awesome.

The thing.

The best.

Harburners.

The thing is a masterpiece.

And I got to tell you, I learned my discs to anyone who asks and they all come back

wild.

You have to say, it holds up with time, and it's the best.

Or a sapphire movie ever.

The thing is the closest to a perfect movie that you could possibly get.

My favorite part has to be who got to the blood bank, the height of the hysteria,

the mistrust, just an amazing movie.

I've been supporting creator VC from the get-go, with their into darkness series.

I'm loving what they've been doing with the bigger documentaries, like aliens and

whatnot.

Very excited that they were doing the thing.

One of my favorite movies.

And kind of a comfort movie.

I love watching the commentary with Carpenter and Russell.

It's always great.

And surprisingly enough, it is one that my wife loves as well and she's not a big

horror movie fan.

So it's really great to have a huge deep dive into this movie that both me and my

wife really enjoy and love.

Thanks and keep doing these awesome documentaries.

Why do I keep rewatching the thing?

Well, it's frightening and flawless and it played a huge part of my childhood.

I mean, this tape was a sleepover stable.

And I cannot wait to introduce it to my kid.

It's just a masterpiece of a movie and you just can't help but want to keep watching

it over and over again.

Looking for that clue that John Carpenter says is the reason why you find out who

the thing is at the end.

It's the greatest horror movie ever made.

And I want to learn as much as possible.

I want to learn all its secrets.

My favorite moment from a thing, I think, I have many, but it starts from

the very beginning because you don't know why this dog is running over the snow or

why he is being hunted.

And I just love that opening scene that sets up the tone and mystery of the entire

movie.

I think it's rewatchable because it has so many layers.

I shared it with my son recently.

And I'm backing the stalking memory because I truly believe it's a sci-fi

classic that really has stood the test of time and the stalking memory will just

continue with legacy.

So the reason I love the thing is my dad and the Navy went to Antarctica and told

me a lot of stories about it.

And kind of reminds me of him and that time.

And that in the fact my sister really freaked out about the thing getting the dogs.

She was really freaked out by that.

And I had some fun with that.

They all love the thing and agreed he's about it.

Whenever I'm asked what my favorite horror movie is or what horror movies I recommend

by my friends, I always say John Carpenter is the thing.

This movie has had such an effect on my life.

And it continues to see support and love to this day.

And I am beyond ecstatic to see the film get what it really deserves.

The thing expanded is an amazing work of art.

I discovered so many secrets and stories that it was like I was there from the

beginning.

Seeing the casting crew today is incredible.

I enjoyed every minute.

And I will again, because I'll be watching it quite a few more times just to see what

I missed the first few times.

This has the greatest jump scare in our movie history.

It beats the exorcist.

Three, the omen, signs, conjuring, and cityists.

You name it.

This is the best.

And I'm talking about the blood test.

When Kurt Russell has the guys strapped down to the chairs and he's checking to

see who's human and who isn't, it's unbelievable.

Because you know something's coming, but you don't know when and when it does,

it goes insane.

The thing has to be my absolute favorite scaring movie of all time.

And my favorite part about the movie comes in the very beginning when the Norwegian

man is trying to tell him a credium in the rest of the cast that that dog is not to

be trusted.

But we, the audience, have no idea what he's saying and neither do the characters.

It perfectly sets up the mystery and paranoia that this film creates and it's

what brings me back every single time.

John Carper is the thing is truly a legendary piece of sci-fi horse cinema.

My favorite part is certainly the blood test scene for it's extremely well-written

and suspense-related edge of your seat type vibes that really put you there.

The film is definitely be watchable to me for any more coincidental soundtrack.

The end of the roll-type vibes that the premise gives off entirely.

And the way that it ends just leaves you know what you're thinking about it.

And I love movies and I get things.

And I grew up watching John Carper and her films and still appreciate them for the

more.

And that's why I had to support this expanded edition.

What makes a thing such a great movie is the fact that it's such a rewatchable

experience due to the paranoia, the setting, the atmosphere, the

characters and the mystery.

The pacing is phenomenal, the writing is fantastic and I haven't even gotten to

talking about the best part of the film.

The practical effects.

There was separate and already fantastic sci-fi horror from the rest and it

elevates it to unreachable heights.

It is my favorite movie all time and I cannot wait to show it to my children and

hopefully pass on my love for practical effects storytelling, carpenter and

suspense.

I can still remember very well when I saw the thing first in a German cinema when it

was premiering.

And the cinema was very empty but I remember being absolutely freaked out by

the definitely later scene.

And by many other great scenes in this film and I'm very very happy that this

great film has had second lease of life.

And wish it all the best for the next 40 -50 years.

My favorite moment of John Carper's The Thing has got to be the basement scene

where they decide to blow up the place.

I just thought it was very creepy and suspenseful.

Why I think the thing is rewatchable is got to be the great chemistry between the

characters and just the overall suspense.

I decided to back The Thing expanded because I thought that it would be great

to get an updated deep dive into this film.

I'm Steve from Peoria and I backed this project The Thing expanded because backing

one of the most powerful films in science fiction horror that has stuck with me for

a whole lifetime is something that has been a dream come true.

The movie is so believable, so well acted and directed and the effects are mind

blowing ahead of its time.

The Thing will never die.

As a teenager in the 80s, every time I would visit SeaWorld, San Diego,

a wild arctic exhibit, I would always linger at the simulated research station.

Imagining, if only for a minute, that I was in Antarctica at U.S.

Up was 31, unaware of the horror that awaited me.

Thank you for creating something that made me who I am today.

Although it was fun, the 50s movie wasn't a good version of the story who goes

there.

I was 26 years old when John Carpenter's version came out and I was totally

impressed.

This was the correct version done with innovation and suspense.

I felt the shock and surprise right along with the crew that was trapped in

Antarctica with The Thing.

I backed The Thing expanded to acknowledge the efforts of everyone involved in this

fun experience.

My favorite moment has got to be the defibrillator scene.

There's just the first time you experience it, the shock and what the fuck moment.

There's nothing like it.

And recently experiencing that with my wife her first time watching it,

it brings back when I had that moment the first time when I was a kid.

And that's one of the moments that sticks with me as a favorite moment in the film.

The Thing has inspired a lot of the things that I love from body games, board games,

figures.

I remember when I was watching the movie, when I was a little kid, it was the scene

when the head walks through the hallway and everyone was like, you got to be

fucking kidding me.

That changed my life.

It's amazing.

And I'm glad to be able to be backing up this project.

Thank you for everything.

I love horror movies.

And The Thing is my favorite movie.

When I got old enough, my dad recommended it to me for three reasons.

One, John Carpenter is one of his favorite directors.

Two, he saw the defibrillator scene in a hotel room in Spain.

They terrified him to this day.

And three, Kurt Russell's in it.

The generator's gone.

Anyway, we can fix it.

It's gone, McCready.

That's one of my favorite lines from my favorite movie of all time.

I absolutely love The Thing.

I've seen it more times than I can count.

Why did I back this project?

Well, clearly I'm a collector.

And I love My Thing.

The reason I love The Thing so much is because so many of its themes can be

applied to the social and cultural issues that were prevalent around the time of its

release.

So something like the red scare or the fear of homosexuality during the AIDS

crisis where someone looks just like you, but isn't quite the same as you.

And I also love McCready's huge hat.

I love The Thing because growing up, my dog would always stare at the wall.

And my favorite scene was the scene of the kennel.

And I had a way to remind me of my dog.

So I first saw The Thing when I was about 10, around, I think it was 1983.

And my dad was a policeman.

And his station had a bar, which already sounds made up to begin with.

There was a TV behind it.

And I happened to look up right as Dr. Copper's arms are taking clean off.

It was like welcome to horror.

Not sure what scarred me more.

The film or realizing police stations used to double the pubs.

But that moment stuck.

And The Thing has been with me ever since.

What makes The Thing so relaunchable to me.

And what I think makes it endure the test of time so well.

Is the incredible practical effects that are throughout the film.

Not only do they look realistic then, they still look realistic now.

And more so than many other movies that are coming out today.

Every time I re-watch The Fill, I find something new to discover within that.

The effects themselves are able to tell the story.

The Thing was such an iconic film.

I am gladly supporting this ambitious documentary to learn and be inspired by

the sheer creativity and genius that went into the making of this film.

Furthermore, I can't wait to learn how my favorite scene the blood testing was

inspired.

It was such an intense moment of the story.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude for the chance to be included in

this amazing documentary.

My favorite moment is in the scene where Windows sees The Thing attacking Benians.

There's a bit of totally where you hear Windows drop a set of keys, which explains

the otherwise unresolved plot point of how the thing managed to get to the blood.

It gives Windows an extra bit of character motivation for running out of the room

when they find the tampered blood.

And all that extra depth being added by one tiny bit of detail.

The art the anyone's going to notice just really sums up what I love so much about

this film in particular.

To me, The Thing is a perfect horror film because it combines amazing storytelling,

atmosphere, effects, music and acting into one of the most compelling films ever

made.

Hi, my name's Adam.

My favorite scene from The Thing is the blood test.

I love rewatching The Thing.

I always pick up new.

Something new every time I watch it, it seems like.

And I backed The Thing expanded because The Thing is my favorite movie.

I think it's a great, great piece of cinema.

And I think it needs to be celebrated and it's legacy kept alive.

What makes The Thing so rewatchable for me is the details and the clues and the

things you notice every single time you watch it, it didn't before.

For example, it took a long time before I realized when Windows flew, it's been

insulated.

You hear the metallic clang as he drops a set of keys.

Is that how they'll end up to the blood?

Or when Mac visits Blair in a torsion, he takes a swing of the bottle before he

hands it to him.

Is that him infecting Blair?

Who knows, it could be a complete misdirection, but it is his details that

open up discussion points like, absolutely love.

Fantastic.

I would have to say, without a doubt, my favorite scene from The Thing has got

to be the blood test scene because no matter how many times I watch it,

I'm always on the edge of my seat and it's just an absolute masterclass and directing

from John Carpenter.

One of the many reasons why I find The Thing so rewatchable is the use of

animatronics and practical effects.

I just think they look so much better than the majority of the films today that you

see G.I.

And I would have to say, without a doubt, my favorite creature from The Thing is the

head spider thing.

I will never get tired of The Thing.

I've been watching this film for 40 years now and I get just as excited every single

time.

It's like little Richard, often imitated, never duplicated, and it's just always

going to be great.

The reason why The Thing is one of the best horror movies ever made for me is

because you have these people thrusts into an unfamiliar situation, and they make the

smart choices.

They make rational decisions even under pressure, but it doesn't matter.

And I think that's what creates such a compelling film environment because you're

sort of marinating within that suspension and tension that the characters are going

through.

And even though they're not necessarily thrusting themselves in the way of danger,

they're still a saluted trap and subject to this thing.

Here's the thing about The Thing.

It is the greatest sci-fi horror of all time, the greatest remake of all time.

The greatest paranoia film of all time, the greatest practical effects film of all

time, from the best era of the 1980s.

The greatest film, but one of the greatest America filmmakers of the last 50 years.

From flop to masterpiece, and the other thing expanded has helped us discover it

anew.

But now the washer thing expanded.

What do we do?

What do we wait here a while?

See what happens.

Every teen, definitely, a bunch of men sitting around watching a cup of blood as

if it was the season final of Lost Door Twin Peaks.

The rules to come just said are quite simple.

Hotwire meets blood, and if it jumps, congrats here, you're an alien.

Tension builds what drops someone regrets every life choice he made, and then bam!

The blood jumps and goes mad, and trust is gone totally iconic.

I'm a big fan of the thing.

It's one of the few horror movies that I come back to, and I'm genuinely frightened

by it.

It's premise by the action.

I love old school effects.

I'm not a big fan of a lot of digital, so I really appreciate the fine details in

the acting, the cinematography, the setting.

It's amazing.

And I think I'll continue to adore it until the day I die, and I hope many more

people watch it, and many more people can appreciate it.

My favorite moment from John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing is that the very

ending when the final player of The Thing monster just pops out into ground,

and be greedy being the cunning, it's swift-thinking man that he is.

He throws the barely lit dynamite after making it epic rolling diamond,

and then we'll cover him snow and frost.

He yells out this final taunt.

Yeah, fuck you too!

And then what?

Just an iconic scene in movie history.

It's just purely epic.

The Thing came out the same year I was born, which means as an infant I didn't

get to experience the initial release.

It's just so gross, but you felt like you could reach out and touch it.

How do you do that?

How do you make something like that?

It's inspired me to get into the local filmmaking scene where I live,

and hopefully it's something I can continue to do as long as I can.