15 Curious Facts About John Carpenter's 'The Thing' (11 Photos)

"Something" is a scary and unique film ... This indescribable an atmosphere of horror and hopelessness when you don't know who is nearby: comrade on an expedition or something terrible and inexplicable ... When hands reach out to weapons to shoot a friend in whom you now see a monster ...





John Carpenter was able to make a very scary and bewitching film, it keeps the viewer in suspense until the end, without letting go seconds from the start of the story...



And although the film "The Thing" in 1982 failed at the box office, it in no way detracts from its value. Such is the fate of many films. Carpenter: failure at the box office and a triumphant return to video cassettes.

I myself, impressed by the picture in my youth, decided recently Refresh your memories by reviewing this creation by John Carpenter. AND absolutely no regrets! Yes, of course, some moments now are perceived differently, but the film did not become worse from this. classic not getting old!



1. The eighth episode of the first season of the cult series The X-Files titled "Ice" is a direct reference to the movie "The Thing", a kind of homage to Carpenter's painting. In this episode Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate the expedition's strange death in Alaska. Later it turns out that the expedition had contact with an alien a parasite that came to our planet with a meteorite. Doesn't it remind you of anything?

2. Before the film was released on the big screens, in 1982, Fangoria magazine held an interesting competition: readers were invited to draw "something" the way they imagine it. Winner received the right to come on a tour of Universal Studios.



3. The Thing is the first Carpenter film for which he did not wrote the music personally (John Carpenter is also a composer). Eventually The composer was Ennio Morricone. Later the film "The Thing" was nominated for the Golden Raspberry anti-award for a bad soundtrack. Ironically, music written for "The Thing" and unused by Morricone in the film, was later inserted into the film "The Hateful Eight" and earned "Oscar".

4. The name of the dog that did a great job in the movie was Jed. She was a cross between a wolf and a Malamute. Jed did a great job work: not looking at the camera and acting like a real actor. For example, the scene in which the dog is looking for a person took only 4 double. John Carpenter was very impressed with the four-legged actor.



5. In the scene when the dog is looking for a person, and the viewer is shown shadow on the wall, no shadow was used to cast this shadow actor involved in filming. John Carpenter thought it would add mystery.

6. One of the reasons The Thing failed in box office, the producers considered the release a few weeks earlier in the same 1982 film "Alien" by Steven Spielberg. After such good-natured alien creature, the audience did not accept the evil option extraterrestrial life shown in "The Thing".



7. The film is recognized as a reference in the field of non-computer special effects. All of them were created by a brilliant special effects master Rob Bottin, who was only 22 years old by the time he started working on the project "Something". By this time, he had already worked in several films.



8. When The Thing was in its final stages creation, Rob Bottin practically lived in a film studio. As a result, Rob was hospitalized with exhaustion, so he had to turn to Stan Winston asking for help in creating a scene where "something" manifests yourself in a cage with dogs.

9. For filming an episode in which "something" bites off hands Dr. Copper (played by Richard Dysart) in first aid Norris, they invited a disabled person who did not have arms to the elbow, and on his face was wearing a Richard Dysart mask. The viewer's attention was riveted to the stumps of hands, and some unnaturalness of Dysart's face-mask is not so caught my eye.



Rob Bottin with one of his creations

10. In the film, two characters have very funny nicknames. The main character with the surname Macridi all call Mac (Mac) and the other the character at the station is called Windows because of the glasses. It's out completely by accident and in no way connected with the world famous Apple and Microsoft corporations. By the way, at that time, these companies they weren't that famous.

11. As John Carpenter himself admitted, he was especially hard when his paintings failed. But the failure at the box office "Something" the director suffered the hardest, especially since he did not like the film as critics and audiences alike. Carpenter was especially upset after public commentary by Christian Nieby, director of the first version of the picture "The Thing from Another World" based on the short story by writer John Campbell "Who going?" In particular, Christina Neebi condemned the adaptation of Carpenter, advising him to go to the slaughterhouse for blood. Also Nibi named The film is a good advertisement for whiskey.



12. Kurt Russell spent almost a year growing a beard and hair for the filming of John Carpenter's The Thing.

13. For filming the moment when Macready goes to the place where in an alien creature was buried on the ice, the background was used, that is everything in the background - the snow, the ship, and the helicopter - was drawn.



Layout for the filming of the film "The Thing", 1982

14. There is not the most pleasant moment in the film when the mechanics Childs is attacked by a kind of "flower" made from the flesh of dogs. To create this "plants" were used twelve canine languages and several rows of canine teeth. Rob Bottin himself called this outrage "angry cabbage."



Shot from the set of the film "The Thing", 1982

15. The premiere of the film took place on the same day as the picture Blade Runner by Ridley Scott. Like The Thing, Scott's Film Failed at the rental. However, later both paintings became cult.