The following contains spoilers forThe Thing.
Critically mauled on release and largely overlooked in cinemas, John CarpentersThe Thinghas only grown in stature since 1982. Who sabotaged the fridge full of blood samples?
Were MacReady and Childs still human at the end?
Behind the scenes, the story of howThe Thingwas made is a fascinating one all by itself.
As Lancaster writes:
Bleary-eyed, MacReady is in the process of blowing up some strange inflatable object.
As he puffs away, he still keeps an eye on the Norwegian video tapes.
His balloon begins to take shape.
It blossoms into a life-size replica of a full-breasted woman.
Something on the tape catches his eye.
He rewinds, then starts it forward again.
A naked, fleshy object bounds high into the air.
Nauls thrusts out his torch, catching the breasts of the inflatable woman.
She pops and is sucked out through the hole in the roof.
Nauls tries to catch his breath.
NAULS: Goddamn white women.
To date, none of the deleted scenes involving the doll have ever emerged.
Even here, its impossible to work out who it is thats doing the stabbing.
His burned body is found in the snow, barely recognizable.
(Is it Fuchs?)
Apparently burned himself rather than be absorbed by the Thing.
What Carpenter went for in the end was rather more ambiguous.
Its one of the films lingering mysteries.
Help me, Nauls cries, as tentacles and other unholy things come writhing from his mouth.
Instead, were left with that eerie shot of Nauls simply walking off to his doom.
Instead, the Blair monster is largely shown in glorious close-up.
Unhappy endings
For a mainstream studio movie,The Things ending is bravely downbeat.
