John Carpenter, director
One of my favourite films was The Thing From Another World. The idea of remaking it was daunting but exciting. This was also my first studio movie so many things were at my disposal – it was very different to independent film-making where you have to scrounge around. The blood-test scene is the reason I did the movie. I thought I could do something special with it.
Kurt Russell wasn’t my first choice to play MacReady, the lead, but the studio really liked him and, of course, I loved him. The big beard was his idea; I came up with the hat. He used a flamethrower in a few scenes and had special training. It’s not very hard – you pull a lever and out comes fire. You just have to try not to get in the way of it.
Rob Bottin, our special effects creator, said early on that the Thing could look like anything, because it’s been imitating creatures across the galaxy. That’s its survival mechanism – so it could do all sorts of different mutation things to the Earth creatures it imitates. I thought: “Oh man, I haven’t seen a creature do that in a movie before. Let’s do that.”
Rob had a big operation, with lots of artists drawing what this creature would look like and what it could do. They used what we knew about special makeup effects at the time: basically rubber effects. The slime used during transformation scenes was made of Carbopol. It’s a chemical thing that drips. The effect that blew the actors’ minds was the fusion of faces that Dr Copper and MacReady bring back from the Norwegian camp. Rob worked so hard he ended up hospitalised with exhaustion.
Ennio Morricone wrote the score. I went to see him in Rome. He didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Italian. He played me a couple of things and, through a translator, I said: “In general, can I request you use fewer notes?” He did – and the result is the opening theme.
Audiences didn’t like the ending. They wanted to know who the Thing was – which was left up in the air. They hated that but I don’t care, that’s the way I wanted to end it. The film was about the end of the world. Its bleakness was the reason it wasn’t a success at the time, but I think also why it has endured. In fact the film was an enormous failure. I got fired because of it and was out of work for a while, but slowly its reputation changed. Not everybody’s convinced, though. There are still plenty of people who think it’s a piece of trash.
Keith David, played Childs
The Thing was my first movie. Childs didn’t have a lot to say but was a mighty presence. He was the strong silent type and a little hot-headed but he’d be the next in line to take over if things needed to be done. Filming was a wonderfully eye-opening experience. I came from theatre. As we sat reading the script, there were some actors I couldn’t hear because they were talking at a level I wasn’t used to. So when it came to my turn, I made sure I could be heard. At lunch, Richard Masur, who played Clark, said to me: “You’re doing great but you don’t have to project so much.”
It was magnificent being around these special effects. It wasn’t like today with CGI. The dogs unnerved me, though. One morning we walked into the studio and there were two dogs sitting there – and they seemed so real. As I remember it, the dogs looked so realistic we got a notice from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to make sure we weren’t being cruel to them. When I first saw the movie, what really got me was that first morphing transformation when the Thing absorbed the dogs in the kennels and the image of the dog’s pink head came out of the goo. I was under my seat.
What I didn’t think at the time, and wasn’t thinking about until later, was how, traditionally, the Black man is not the guy who lasts to the end. This was one of the first movies where the Black guy lasts to the final scene. I don’t think I’m the only brother who’s ever survived in a horror or sci-fi movie, but I’m certainly one of the few. It was great foresight on John’s part.
I hear lots of theories about the final sequence. We played it various ways; as if I was the Thing, as if it was MacReady, and as if it was neither of us. People wonder why there’s no breath coming out of my mouth in the cold after the station burns down, and say it had to be me. But I say that if I’m downstage of the fire you wouldn’t see steam coming from my mouth because there’s too much heat. That’s how I explain it, but it’s your movie, your experience. The Thing is whoever you think it is.
