49 Fun Facts About The Thing

Which weapon do the men of The Thing rely on to destroy the creature?

Flamethrowers are the men's answer to a creature whose every part can survive alone, and cinematographer Dean Cundey used their glow, with magenta flares, to help light the film.

Which tagline did Universal drop from The Thing's posters before its release?

Man is the warmest place to hide was the original tagline, but after uneasy preview screenings the studio swapped it for 'The ultimate in alien terror'.

Which writer of The Bad News Bears scripted The Thing (1982)?

Bill Lancaster, son of the actor Burt Lancaster, devised the film's blood-test scene and wrote four drafts of the script.

Kurt Russell's R. J. MacReady has what job at the station in The Thing?

Helicopter pilot was the film's invention: in the novella MacReady is a meteorologist, and the script recast him as a loner who 'likes chess' and 'hates the cold'.

Wilford Brimley plays Blair in The Thing, who holds what role at the outpost?

Senior biologist Blair was meant to be infected early but offscreen, so the film never shows the moment he stops being himself.

Keith David plays Childs in The Thing, who holds which job at the station?

Chief mechanic Childs was Keith David's first significant film role; he and Richard Masur agreed in rehearsal that their two characters would not like each other.

Which character in The Thing is the station's cook, played by T. K. Carter?

Nauls also drew the comedian Franklyn Ajaye in to read, but he instead gave a long speech calling the character a stereotype, which ended the meeting.

Which character in The Thing is the radio operator, played by Thomas Waites?

Windows was called Sanchez and then Sanders in early drafts; the name changed when Waites tried on a large pair of dark glasses at a costume fitting.

Donald Moffat's Garry holds which position at the outpost in The Thing?

Station commander Garry loses the men's trust once the stored blood is found destroyed, and MacReady takes charge; Lee Van Cleef and Jerry Orbach were both considered for the part.

Richard Masur plays Clark in The Thing, who has what job at the station?

Dog handler was Masur's own pick: he also read for Garry, but asked to play Clark because he liked the character's dialogue and was a fan of dogs.

After its title card, The Thing opens on which chase across the Antarctic ice?

A helicopter hunting a sled dog: the Norwegians aboard are trying to kill the animal, but the Americans cannot understand their shouted warning and shoot the pilot dead.

What do MacReady and Copper bring back from the Norwegian camp in The Thing?

A burnt, malformed corpse, part human in shape, comes back with them, along with tapes showing the Norwegians cutting something out of the ice.

Where does the sled dog first reveal its true nature in The Thing?

In the kennel, shut in with the station's own dogs, it splits apart and begins absorbing them; the effect was a puppet worked from beneath a raised set.

What does Blair do in The Thing once his simulation shows the creature's spread?

Wrecks the vehicles, dogs and radio, so that nothing can carry the creature to the outside world; the others then lock him away on his own in the tool shed.

What happens to Dr. Copper when he tries to defibrillate Norris in The Thing?

His arms are bitten off when Norris's chest opens into a huge mouth; the shot used a double amputee wearing false arms of wax bones, rubber veins and Jell-O.

In The Thing's blood test scene, whose blood recoils from the heated wire?

Palmer's blood leaps from the dish because, as MacReady has worked out, every part of the creature is a separate life that will act to save itself.

In The Thing, what has Blair been secretly building beneath the tool shed?

A small flying saucer, pieced together from scavenged vehicle parts, is his way off the ice; MacReady, Garry and Nauls find it and destroy it.

How does The Thing (1982) end?

MacReady and Childs wait to freeze, sharing a bottle of Scotch and unsure of each other; in the first draft both had become the Thing and were rescued in spring.

Which composer did John Carpenter hire for The Thing instead of scoring it himself?

Ennio Morricone was hired for a European sound, yet his main theme echoes Carpenter's own synthesiser style, and the score was nominated for a Razzie.

Who created the creature effects for The Thing (1982)?

Rob Bottin built the creatures from rubber and foodstuffs such as mayonnaise, creamed corn and microwaved bubble gum, and talked Carpenter into showing far more of the monster than the script did.

Making The Thing put its young effects chief in hospital with what?

Exhaustion, pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer were the price of taking on too much: he said he would 'hoard the work' rather than hand any of it to someone else.

Which effects artist stepped in to build The Thing's Dog-Thing and refused any credit?

Stan Winston, short of time for a full mechanical creature, built it as a hand puppet, then took only a 'thank you' in the credits so that the young effects chief kept sole billing.

The sled dog in The Thing was played by an uncredited animal named what?

Jed, a wolfdog, rehearsed daily with the cast so that on camera he would stand beside an actor without looking for his handler; he later played the title role in White Fang (1991).

The Thing was shot on refrigerated Los Angeles sets, in Juneau, Alaska, and near which Canadian town?

Stewart, British Columbia, gave Carpenter real snow: unhappy that his first cut had too many scenes of men standing around talking, he rewrote some to be shot outdoors there.

The Thing cost $15 million; which earlier Carpenter hit cost about $300,000?

Halloween cost about $300,000 and took some $70 million worldwide; The Thing cost nearly fifty times as much, $1.5 million of it on creature effects, and only just earned its budget back in cinemas.

Which science-fiction film opened in US cinemas the same day as The Thing?

Blade Runner opened at number two that weekend with $6.1 million, about double The Thing's $3.1 million; Carpenter's film was out of the top ten by its fourth weekend.

Which veteran British actor did Carpenter want as Blair in The Thing, before judging him too recognisable?

Donald Pleasence was Carpenter's choice, but the part needed a face audiences would not miss when Blair drops out of sight, so it went to the then little-known Wilford Brimley.

Which 1982 release reached US cinemas two weeks before The Thing?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was still number one when The Thing opened; audiences wanted E.T., Carpenter said later, and his film was the opposite.

Which title did Carpenter try to switch The Thing to at the last minute?

Who Goes There? is the title of John W. Campbell's 1938 novella, the story the film adapts; Carpenter asked for the change while the studio was reworking its posters after uneasy previews, to no avail.

How was The Thing received on its release in 1982?

Poor reviews, then a cult following on video and television: Carpenter recalled being called 'a pornographer of violence', and did not talk openly about the failure until 1985.

Which Quentin Tarantino film reused music written for The Thing but left out of it?

The Hateful Eight, which again puts Kurt Russell among snowed-in strangers who cannot trust one another, used pieces the composer wrote for The Thing that never made it into the film.

Why did The Thing's script cut the novella's 37 men to 12?

Viewer confusion was the screenwriter's worry: he said 37 characters would be hard for audiences to follow and would leave little screen time for each of them.

The 1951 film The Thing from Another World was officially directed by whom?

Christian Nyby took the credit, reportedly so that he could join the Directors Guild; the cast disagreed over how much the producer Howard Hawks directed, and Hawks always denied doing so.

Which future TV western star played the monster in The Thing from Another World (1951)?

James Arness is hard to make out in it: the film shows its monster only in brief glimpses, mostly in shadow, which adds to the menace.

In The Thing from Another World (1951), the scientists conclude the creature is an advanced form of what?

Plant life: one scientist even raises seedlings from its severed arm, feeding them on blood; Carpenter, unimpressed by this monster, went back to the novella's shape-shifter.

Carpenter set The Thing in Antarctica; where is The Thing from Another World (1951) set?

The Arctic: the saucer lies frozen in the polar ice, and when the men try to free it with thermite the craft is destroyed, leaving only its pilot in a block of ice.

The Thing from Another World (1951) ends with a reporter's famous warning to do what?

Keep watching the skies closes the reporter's radio broadcast from the base, and the line later gave Bill Warren's history of 1950s science-fiction films its title.

In the 2011 film The Thing, how does Kate Lloyd check who is still human?

By their dental fillings: the creature cannot copy inorganic matter, so anyone with metal in their teeth is cleared, while those with flawless teeth fall under suspicion.

Who leads the cast of the 2011 prequel The Thing as paleontologist Kate Lloyd?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays an American flown in to a Norwegian base; her co-star Ulrich Thomsen took over his role a week into filming, after another actor had already shot scenes.

What became of most practical creature effects made for 2011's The Thing?

They were digitally replaced in post, to the frustration of the Amalgamated Dynamics crew who built them; their answer was Harbinger Down, a crowdfunded horror film made with practical creatures only.

In the novella behind The Thing, how long ago had the alien ship crashed in the Antarctic ice?

Twenty million years in the 1938 story; the 1982 film shortens the wait, with Norris judging that the ship has lain buried for over a hundred thousand years.

Who provides the only female voice in The Thing (1982), as MacReady's chess computer?

Adrienne Barbeau was married to Carpenter at the time; the film's producers and writer slip in too, as faces in a recovered photograph of the Norwegian team.

Which director did Universal first assign to The Thing in the 1970s because he was under contract?

Tobe Hooper and his writing partner Kim Henkel produced a draft set partly underwater, a Moby-Dick-like tale of a captain against a creature that never changed shape; the producers disliked it.

Which comedians were brought in to read for stoner mechanic Palmer in The Thing?

Jay Leno and Garry Shandling were tried because Palmer has comic moments, but the part went to an actor, David Clennon, who was better suited to its dramatic side.

Why is Keith David's left hand kept out of shot for the first half of The Thing?

A break in a car crash the day before he started: he came back from hospital with two pins in the hand, wearing a surgical glove under a black glove painted to match his skin.

Why did Universal refuse the team's wish to shoot The Thing in black-and-white?

It could hurt TV rights sales, the studio feared, so Dean Cundey muted the colour instead, painting the sets in neutral greys and letting the flares and flames supply the colour.

Which 1984 film did Carpenter lose the chance to direct because of The Thing's poor box office?

Firestarter, from the Stephen King novel, went to Mark L. Lester instead, and the studio bought Carpenter out of his multi-film contract.

Which publisher put out four comic book sequels starring MacReady, starting in December 1991?

Chuck Pfarrer's first two-parter picks up 24 hours after the film, and Carpenter called it a worthy sequel idea.

John Carpenter groups The Thing with two of his later films under what name?

The Apocalypse Trilogy continues with Prince of Darkness (1987) and In the Mouth of Madness (1994); the three share no plot or characters, only cosmic horror that threatens the sense of self.