I think the irony is in them flopping but becoming classics; the fact that two such films were released on the same day is coincidental.
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How about the theme of needing to wonder if your friends and colleagues are really themselves as youâve known them, or instead perfectly-duplicated but malicious copies? Do the copies even really know that they are copies? If they donât, how can I even be sure if I am really myself instead of a duplicate? It sort of edges the PKD mindfrack space.
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Werd! Ravers do amazing things with fans these days!
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One of my favorite cinematic experiences is going to see the 2011 film The Thing. Even for a prequel it was actually disappointing compared to the 1982 Carpenter filmâalthough itâs hard to see how it could measure up.
Anyway what made it so memorable is that as Ennio Morriconeâs theme played and the credits rolled all of us in the theaterâall seven, all, as far as I could tell, complete strangersâgathered together at the front and had an impromptu discussion about the film weâd just seen, the 1982 film, the 1951 film The Thing From Another World, and the short story they were all based on.
And then after about twenty minutes we split up and went our separate ways. I feel more than a little regret about that.
Anyone confused about how the three films spanning six decades are connected can consult this simple diagram.
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One might say that all of the Republicans running for President are essentially saying the same things she did. So if anything the horror is only growingâŚ
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If you havenât seen it, I HIGHLY suggest The Cabin in the Woods. Itâs the only âslasherâ type movie that evolves into âexistential horrorâ in a wonderful, humorous fashion, and then just keeps dialing it up. Really, itâs effinâ AWESOME. And itâs also highly comedic (Joss Whedon and all).
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Cabin in the Woods was excellent and, indeed, qualifies as existential horror.
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I always loved his cry of existential despair - Itâs clobbering time. Imagine being a large pile of orange blocks and having to clobber several times a day.
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I enjoyed âCabin in the Woods.â But I still think the best take-down of the Slasher genre is âDale and Tucker vs. Evil.â Your mileage may vary.
I watch The Thing every Halloween, along with The Fog, a less stellar but still classic ghost story.
The Thing really is about identity, and losing it, and the paranoia of having it taken away, violently even, to become something youâre not. Itâs the paranoia of not knowing who your friends are, from moment to moment. The older I get, the more I can relate.
A great, great movie.
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The Thing became my favorite horror movie from the moment I saw it. Iâm way too young to have seen it in a theater (Iâd definitely do so, given the chance), but my reaction to everything was similar, minus the screaming and vomiting: just sitting there, shocked and silent, unable to believe what I was seeing. The practical effects in this movie are spectacular, and utterly believable the first time you watch it and donât know what to expect. Thereâs something almost Lovecraftian about this movie, like you can feel your grip on reality slipping away as the fear and paranoia build and youâre forced to watch human characters suddenly twist and distort into utterly alien, gore-soaked abominations. It also makes it easy to sympathize with the characters of the film, even if you donât particularly relate to their personality or background- when confronted with The Thing, just being human is commonality enough- which makes it all the more horrifying that you canât take it for granted that anyone IS human.
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There is a lot of that there. John Carpenter made a great commentary track for a DVD release where he said that he was also very much inspired by the AIDS paranoia of the time. Tying directly into testing peopleâs blood to see if they are one of THEM. I hadnât thought of that, having seen it many times over the years, but keeping this mind when re-watching it made a lot of thematic sense.
My ex damned the film with faint praise, saying âI guess itâs not bad for a B movieâ. (!!!) Apparently, they hadnât seen many, because there are a lot of examples which barely possess the technical competence to be called a movie. Iâd think that regardless of if the story really resonated with them, a person critiquing it would at least recognized an uncommonly polished and detailed production by any standards. Especially when one considers the lack of care, budget, and skill which so often impacts genre work such as sci-fi and horror movies.
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Boy, you said it. I enjoy Escape From New York nearly as much as I love The Thing, but even though they were shot a year apart, EFNY definitely looks like it was shot in 1980, whereas with the exception of a couple of brief stop-motion shots, the vast majority of The Thing holds up as well as if it were shot last week.
E.T. definitely hoovered up a lot of the box office dollars that year, but I donât think Universal marketed The Thing to E.T. audiences. I think Blade Runner was stiffer competition than E.T. was. And anyway, the critics savaged The Thing when it was released.
Carpenter said:
âI take every failure hard. The one I took the hardest was The Thing. My career would have been different if that had been a big hitâŚThe movie was hated. Even by science-fiction fans. They thought that I had betrayed some kind of trust, and the piling on was insane. Even the original movieâs director, Christian Nyby, was dissing me.â
I saw the movie when I was 14 or so, and it scared the utter crap out of me. Eventually it became my favorite monster movie ever, but it took me a few years to embrace the body horror. Bottin was all of 22 years old when he did the makeup FX on The Thing. Christ, what an imagination.
And now, âYou gotta be fucking kiddingâ is my all-time favorite horror movie one-liner.
Another fun fact from Wikipedia:
The Thing is annually viewed by members of the winter crew at the AmundsenâScott South Pole Station during the first evening of winter. It is also viewed by scientific personnel at the Summit Camp on the apex of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
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Isnât this winging its way across the Atlantic for me right now?
I do wonder how this company hasnât been sued out of existence for IP infringement.
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My fatherâs eldest sister worked for the U.S. State Department, and worked in several embassies all over the world. While she was based in Helsinki, she had occasion to take a weekend trip to Oslo, and from there she sent me a sweatshirt that read âNORGEâ across the chest. I donât think she ever realized why I liked that sweatshirt so much.
âHey, Sweden!â
âTheyâre not Swedish, Mac, theyâre Norwegian.â
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you beat me to it. thatâs a little misanthropic masterpiece in its own right.
When I first watched âThe Thingâ on tv, I couldnât figure out what it was about. apparently all the gory scenes were missing, and that didnât leave enough to follow the story. But I donât remember - did they cut the movie for the early evening program, or did I close my eyes?!
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The ripped off head looked like it could have belonged to Lou Reed at one time!
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Hey, kids! Check out the read-along book & record version of The Thing!
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