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The original was posted on /r/horror by /u/SSF415 on 2025-10-02 01:22:52+00:00.

I’m watching 30 scary movies in 30 days, and this year we’re all about invading aliens. That is, alien who invade us, not aliens we’re invading–you get me.

There’s a contemporary news story about the 1982 release of “The Thing,” I think from the LA Times but maybe actually from Hollywood Reporter or some industry outlet, quoting John Carpenter and others who worked on the movie as baffled that it flopped and saying they can’t imagine what they could possibly have done differently.

Plenty of people who helmed Hollywood disasters felt that way, but Carpenter probably has one of the strongest cases. It’s like if all of Third Dynasty Egypt told Imhotep, “I dunno, did you have to make the pyramid so, you know, pyramidal?”

Odds are if you read this far you already know how this one goes: In this second adaptation of the 1938 alien thriller “Who Goes There,” a south pole research station accidentally takes in a gruesome shapeshifting alien that can assume anyone’s appearance.

Carpenter has never been shy about his love for the original “The Thing From Another World,” but that movie lacked the means to adapt the most important element of the 1938 novel: the alien. By the mid-70s, a gang of producers were convinced they could do better.

In an interview with the site Creative Screenwriting, Carpenter said he really didn’t think he could do a better movie than the 50s film but signed on because he figured he could at least improve upon the monster design, which even he had to admit “wasn’t any great shakes,” since it was basically just Megamind in coveralls.

He testifies that the original script kept the alien mostly off camera and “In the shadows,” but of course if you’ve seen the movie you know they threw that idea out the window, then they nailed the window shut, bricked up the room that the window was in, then went through the house and blacked out the word “window” from all dictionaries in a kind of Stalin-esque revisionist mania.

Flouting all conventional logic, the whole point of “The Thing” is to show the monster in as much detail as possible–because if less is more, than more is that much more, and who would settle for less with that argument?

Of course, thanks to Rob Bottin and his effects team it all worked out, and the rest is history, although the Oscars even rewarded “ET" for best effects rather than this. “The Thing” wasn’t even nominated, and in response Bottin twisted his head 180 degrees, shrieked like a peacock, and scuttled out of the room on 51 articulated spider legs.

1982 was a huge year for alien movies, with “ET” probing deeply into American popular culture, but “The Thing” went up in flames. Still, if you’re reading this then you know the Carpenter Crew eventually got the last laugh, as “The Thing” is now considered one of the defining movies in the genre and an inspiration to any creative who responded to a setback by saying, “Fools–I’ll destroy them all!” I assume that’s what he said.

Well, this was a strong start to the month…but it won’t last, because tomorrow’s movie is another “Thing” entirely.

Original Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brPRW-_OcdE