A: So, we're just coming up on the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter's The Thing. When did you first see it?
M: I remember very distinctly watching it for the first time in middle school, in my parent's bedroom on cable, and just being completely enthralled. The defibrillator scene was one of the most shocking and disgusting moments I'd ever seen in a movie. It burned itself in my memory in 2004 and I've never been able to forget it, which I honestly kind of regret because it's such a perfectly orchestrated jump scare, it's not telegraphed at all. I would Eternal Sunshine the whole movie from my mind to relive seeing that scene for the first time.
And I recall very clearly having a strong reaction to the ending, which was one of the first open-ended downers that I saw as a kid. The idea that we don't know what happened next, that it was scarier to just leave our characters in crisis than to reach a tidy resolution was totally mind-blowing at 13. Absolutely formative. What about you, when did you first see it?
"The idea that we don't know what happened next, that it was scarier to just leave our characters in crisis than to reach a tidy resolution was totally mind-blowing at 13."
A: Yeah, the ending is shockingly mature. I actually only watched it for the first time last year, so I got to experience that jump scare fresh! And hearing you talk about it, now it feels like I got to experience the chest-bursting scene from Alien without knowing it was coming. Somehow it wasn't spoiled for me at all.
M: Yeah, The Thing is obviously a famous movie, but it's not really as iconic as something like Alien, which was a huge mainstream success. So it hasn't been parodied as frequently, and you don't have the imagery baked into your subconscious before you've even seen the movie.
A: What's interesting about that is despite not being as well-known as something like Alien, The Thing has still been made and remade multiple times. And I read and watched all the versions of it in advance of this.
M: Very impressive!
A: Thank you! Each iteration is surprisingly different than the last. The premise is the same (an alien is discovered in the ice), but each has its own take on what the Thing is and how it operates. In the original novella, the Thing is described as having three eyes that stare hauntingly at you. It mutates people once it infects them, but that isn't really a big element in the story. Then in the 1951 movie, the Thing is a plant creature that doesn't imitate humans at all. It's just a guy in a suit, with some sticky goop on it. It's not until the John Carpenter version that we get to really explore the concept that it can hide inside people. I also watched the 2011 remake… and I regret having done that.
M: [LAUGHS] Yup.
A: It doesn't bring anything fresh to the conversation. Each iteration zeroes in on different themes—the novella is all about perceiving and being perceived, the ‘51 film continues this with some post-war commentary, and then John Carpenter’s has all the iconic scares and effects. It’s hard to say what the 2011 one is about, if anything. It has the energy of your friend’s younger sibling trying to describe a cool movie they saw once. It has a surprisingly stacked cast though.
M: Annoyingly so. That movie should have been filled with no-name Norwegians! And I also hold it responsible for the trend of horror sequels having the exact same title as the movie they are a sequel to. I'm looking at Halloween (2018), I'm looking at Scream (2022). It's a very confusing naming convention and we have The Thing (2011) to blame. It's maddening having to include the release year in brackets like that.
A: Now that you mention it, the titles for all the versions of this story are all over the place. We go from Who Goes There? for the novella, to The Thing From Another World in '51, to The Thing in '82, and then The Thing again in '11.
M: It was a missed opportunity that the 2011 version wasn't just called Thing. No “The.”
A: Exactly. It's cleaner.
M: [LAUGHS]
A: But what I found most interesting about the '51 version was that despite the creature not actually imitating people, the film still really leans into the idea that people will begin to “other” one another once a threat is introduced into their community.
M: I've only seen the '51 movie once many years ago, but my recollection is that there's a tension between the military and the science team at the outpost?
A: That's right, it's the only iteration of the story to feature the military, which is a very ‘50s thing. We also have a journalist as one of our POV characters, so you have multiple competing cultural interests at play. Nobody can agree on what to do, and everyone ends up blaming each other.
M: That is thematically really similar to the '82 version. A group descending into self-recriminations rather than pulling together in a crisis.
A: Yeah, which is obviously an idea that's sadly relevant to 2022.
M: Exactly. This was actually the third time I've rewatched The Thing during the pandemic, and each time it felt like it was speaking to me about COVID. The first time was back in 2020, in the early months of lockdown, and at that point, I was just really struck by the medical horror of it all. We were seeing so many figures and projections in the news, so the scene where Wilford Brimley is running the numbers on his computer and realizes the entire world's population will be infected by the Thing in a matter of time… that hit hard.
"They don't trust each other, but there is a shared understanding that this is a threat that needs to be dealt with collectively. In that sense, the crew of Outpost 31 has a much better handle on their crisis than we do in ours."
A: You've also got the moment where they decide they should all prepare and eat their meals separately, so they don't contaminate each other. They're going to be occupying the same place but not really living together. That felt almost too on the nose considering everyone was having that conversation with their roommates at the beginning of this pandemic.
M: That scene got me too. Then I watched it again in 2021, and it felt like such a perfect reflection of the dysfunction and distrust we were experiencing as a society at that point. By then the fear of the virus had turned into a fear of people. You go out into the world, and you don't know who's vaccinated, who believes in what you do, who has the virus in them and who doesn't. The paranoia happening in the film was happening to you whenever you left the house.
But watching it yesterday for this chat... I realized I wasn't seeing the pandemic in it anymore. Something had shifted. I couldn't figure out why but then it clicked for me at the end; every character in the film comes to agree that the Thing is real and is dangerous and must be stopped. They don't trust each other, but there is a shared understanding that this is a threat that needs to be dealt with collectively. In that sense, the crew of Outpost 31 has a much better handle on their crisis than we do in ours.
A: I don't know if we've ever had that kind of cohesion during the pandemic.
M: No, I don't think we have either. But it's reached a different level now. For The Thing to accurately depict our current moment, you'd need half the characters to be totally cool with the world being 100% infected by the Thing. You know, "We've done the blood tests, now it's time to learn to live with the Thing!" Now, to be fair, I'll acknowledge that the Thing is a greater threat than COVID. So, it's not 1:1.
A: I'll concede to that. [LAUGHS]
A: It's interesting how each version also seems to speak to an anachronistic topic. The 1938 novella seems to be talking about social media; there are these repeated references to how unsettling it is that the monster seems to always be watching you, and then how everyone else looks at you when they think you are infected, and my mind went right to Facebook. Do you think part of the appeal of science fiction, in general, is that we like looking for predictions? We're so satisfied when we make these connections. Maybe sci-fi is best judged in retrospect in that way.
M: Oh, for sure! I think that goes right back to the base definition of science fiction, which literally means a fantastical story that extrapolates on the truth. You make a movie about a real thing, a real event, and that boxes in your interpretation: a WWII movie is about WWII. But if you make a movie about something that hasn't happened, but could happen, it opens avenues of interpretation that let in all these contemporary meanings. The Thing isn't real, but your mind tries to situate it in the real world, and that's when these connections happen.
A: Yeah, that's not something that happens so much with straight dramas. You recognize human behaviour in them, because people don't change really, but they're often tied down to the moment they were made.
M: Absolutely. I'm sure if we were having this chat in the early 2000s we'd see The War on Terror all over the movie. And we'd have a strong case. Ten years from now it will be about something else. Admittedly when I saw it in 2004 I didn't see any parallels to current events. It was just a really, really cool monster movie then. But it changes with you, and it changes with the world.
A: It mutates. [LAUGHS]
M: It mutates!
A: So, we're just coming up on the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter's The Thing. When did you first see it?
M: I remember very distinctly watching it for the first time in middle school, in my parent's bedroom on cable, and just being completely enthralled. The defibrillator scene was one of the most shocking and disgusting moments I'd ever seen in a movie. It burned itself in my memory in 2004 and I've never been able to forget it, which I honestly kind of regret because it's such a perfectly orchestrated jump scare, it's not telegraphed at all. I would Eternal Sunshine the whole movie from my mind to relive seeing that scene for the first time.
And I recall very clearly having a strong reaction to the ending, which was one of the first open-ended downers that I saw as a kid. The idea that we don't know what happened next, that it was scarier to just leave our characters in crisis than to reach a tidy resolution was totally mind-blowing at 13. Absolutely formative. What about you, when did you first see it?
"The idea that we don't know what happened next, that it was scarier to just leave our characters in crisis than to reach a tidy resolution was totally mind-blowing at 13."
A: Yeah, the ending is shockingly mature. I actually only watched it for the first time last year, so I got to experience that jump scare fresh! And hearing you talk about it, now it feels like I got to experience the chest-bursting scene from Alien without knowing it was coming. Somehow it wasn't spoiled for me at all.
M: Yeah, The Thing is obviously a famous movie, but it's not really as iconic as something like Alien, which was a huge mainstream success. So it hasn't been parodied as frequently, and you don't have the imagery baked into your subconscious before you've even seen the movie.
A: What's interesting about that is despite not being as well-known as something like Alien, The Thing has still been made and remade multiple times. And I read and watched all the versions of it in advance of this.
M: Very impressive!
A: Thank you! Each iteration is surprisingly different than the last. The premise is the same (an alien is discovered in the ice), but each has its own take on what the Thing is and how it operates. In the original novella, the Thing is described as having three eyes that stare hauntingly at you. It mutates people once it infects them, but that isn't really a big element in the story. Then in the 1951 movie, the Thing is a plant creature that doesn't imitate humans at all. It's just a guy in a suit, with some sticky goop on it. It's not until the John Carpenter version that we get to really explore the concept that it can hide inside people. I also watched the 2011 remake… and I regret having done that.
M: [LAUGHS] Yup.
A: It doesn't bring anything fresh to the conversation. Each iteration zeroes in on different themes—the novella is all about perceiving and being perceived, the ‘51 film continues this with some post-war commentary, and then John Carpenter’s has all the iconic scares and effects. It’s hard to say what the 2011 one is about, if anything. It has the energy of your friend’s younger sibling trying to describe a cool movie they saw once. It has a surprisingly stacked cast though.
M: Annoyingly so. That movie should have been filled with no-name Norwegians! And I also hold it responsible for the trend of horror sequels having the exact same title as the movie they are a sequel to. I'm looking at Halloween (2018), I'm looking at Scream (2022). It's a very confusing naming convention and we have The Thing (2011) to blame. It's maddening having to include the release year in brackets like that.
A: Now that you mention it, the titles for all the versions of this story are all over the place. We go from Who Goes There? for the novella, to The Thing From Another World in '51, to The Thing in '82, and then The Thing again in '11.
M: It was a missed opportunity that the 2011 version wasn't just called Thing. No “The.”
A: Exactly. It's cleaner.
M: [LAUGHS]
A: But what I found most interesting about the '51 version was that despite the creature not actually imitating people, the film still really leans into the idea that people will begin to “other” one another once a threat is introduced into their community.
M: I've only seen the '51 movie once many years ago, but my recollection is that there's a tension between the military and the science team at the outpost?
A: That's right, it's the only iteration of the story to feature the military, which is a very ‘50s thing. We also have a journalist as one of our POV characters, so you have multiple competing cultural interests at play. Nobody can agree on what to do, and everyone ends up blaming each other.
M: That is thematically really similar to the '82 version. A group descending into self-recriminations rather than pulling together in a crisis.
A: Yeah, which is obviously an idea that's sadly relevant to 2022.
M: Exactly. This was actually the third time I've rewatched The Thing during the pandemic, and each time it felt like it was speaking to me about COVID. The first time was back in 2020, in the early months of lockdown, and at that point, I was just really struck by the medical horror of it all. We were seeing so many figures and projections in the news, so the scene where Wilford Brimley is running the numbers on his computer and realizes the entire world's population will be infected by the Thing in a matter of time… that hit hard.
"They don't trust each other, but there is a shared understanding that this is a threat that needs to be dealt with collectively. In that sense, the crew of Outpost 31 has a much better handle on their crisis than we do in ours."
A: You've also got the moment where they decide they should all prepare and eat their meals separately, so they don't contaminate each other. They're going to be occupying the same place but not really living together. That felt almost too on the nose considering everyone was having that conversation with their roommates at the beginning of this pandemic.
M: That scene got me too. Then I watched it again in 2021, and it felt like such a perfect reflection of the dysfunction and distrust we were experiencing as a society at that point. By then the fear of the virus had turned into a fear of people. You go out into the world, and you don't know who's vaccinated, who believes in what you do, who has the virus in them and who doesn't. The paranoia happening in the film was happening to you whenever you left the house.
But watching it yesterday for this chat... I realized I wasn't seeing the pandemic in it anymore. Something had shifted. I couldn't figure out why but then it clicked for me at the end; every character in the film comes to agree that the Thing is real and is dangerous and must be stopped. They don't trust each other, but there is a shared understanding that this is a threat that needs to be dealt with collectively. In that sense, the crew of Outpost 31 has a much better handle on their crisis than we do in ours.
A: I don't know if we've ever had that kind of cohesion during the pandemic.
M: No, I don't think we have either. But it's reached a different level now. For The Thing to accurately depict our current moment, you'd need half the characters to be totally cool with the world being 100% infected by the Thing. You know, "We've done the blood tests, now it's time to learn to live with the Thing!" Now, to be fair, I'll acknowledge that the Thing is a greater threat than COVID. So, it's not 1:1.
A: I'll concede to that. [LAUGHS]
A: It's interesting how each version also seems to speak to an anachronistic topic. The 1938 novella seems to be talking about social media; there are these repeated references to how unsettling it is that the monster seems to always be watching you, and then how everyone else looks at you when they think you are infected, and my mind went right to Facebook. Do you think part of the appeal of science fiction, in general, is that we like looking for predictions? We're so satisfied when we make these connections. Maybe sci-fi is best judged in retrospect in that way.
M: Oh, for sure! I think that goes right back to the base definition of science fiction, which literally means a fantastical story that extrapolates on the truth. You make a movie about a real thing, a real event, and that boxes in your interpretation: a WWII movie is about WWII. But if you make a movie about something that hasn't happened, but could happen, it opens avenues of interpretation that let in all these contemporary meanings. The Thing isn't real, but your mind tries to situate it in the real world, and that's when these connections happen.
A: Yeah, that's not something that happens so much with straight dramas. You recognize human behaviour in them, because people don't change really, but they're often tied down to the moment they were made.
M: Absolutely. I'm sure if we were having this chat in the early 2000s we'd see The War on Terror all over the movie. And we'd have a strong case. Ten years from now it will be about something else. Admittedly when I saw it in 2004 I didn't see any parallels to current events. It was just a really, really cool monster movie then. But it changes with you, and it changes with the world.
A: It mutates. [LAUGHS]
M: It mutates!