The Thing turned out REALLY good! The effects were crazy and movie was pretty freaky. We React to The Thing 2011 Prequel: ua-cam.com/video/_6TOS0R3mrc/v-deo.html If you're fiending for more movie reactions we have EARLY ACCESS for I Am Legend (2007) and Interstellar (2014) along with FULL LENGTH reactions. www.patreon.com/raggedypack Come Hang out in our Discord discord.gg/HQFtGkCf37
Congrats you three on picking up on the door shadow the dog went into in the first part of the movie. That was how I figured out who was. The ending has been argued for 40 years if either were the thing. The movie "The Thing" from 2011 is the Norwegian story before Mac and Copper flew to find the burned out site.
That dog scared everybody on set. It's mother was mated with a wolf and the wolf side was definitely the dominant one. It never barked,it never growled, it never made a sound. Anyone who's owned a husky knows how incredibly vocal they are.
Most people do have that initial reaction, and it's a clear example of emotion over logic. Logically, especially when the Norwegian goes for the grenades, it's clear he's pretty desperate to kill this dog. He's not trying to casually hunt the thing, they're scientific researchers in Antarctica for crying out loud, the odds of someone who'd sadistically hunt a dog for no reason getting onto such a team is close to 0. Therefore he has to be trying to kill the dog for a reason. In fact, the only logical thing for the Americans to do in that situation, even after they shoot back and kill the Norwegian, is to immediately isolate the dog inside of a pen or room by itself and away from other dogs and humans, because being in Antarctica (an environment that hasn't been carefully studied), the most logical assumption to make after witnessing such a desperate attempt to kill the dog is that it's probably infected by an unknown disease or parasite endemic to Antarctica and not present elsewhere. Even if you think maybe the Norwegian just got pissed the dog attacked him, and felt it needed to be put down, you should still immediately isolate the dog until you can be sure of that because you can't take that kind of risk. To be honest, the American team responded *very* stupidly in the film, by letting the dog just wander around for awhile, and then finally putting it in a pen with other dogs. But when you see most viewers of the film having the emotional reaction of "Awww, poor puppers, don't hurt it you awful person!" towards the Norwegian, you can also understand why the American team behaved so stupidly. Because many people will have, and will prioritize, that emotional reaction over logically thinking about the situation. And prioritizing emotion over logic is a fast way to produce very bad results in dangerous situations.
The first time i watchedthe movie and saw the norwegians shot the dog i imediatly became suspicious of the dog. There had to be a good reason why the shot was being chased and shot at. I find it strange too many people don't pick on that. I mean, they are norwegians, if there is a dog friendly people that's them given their long tradition of using dogs in their artic projects.
I first watched it while randomly channel surfing without know the movie's title or have any idea its a horror movie about aliens, going in completely without any background info, no way I or anyone would think there is something wrong with the dog .... Naturally I thought they were shooting the dog for fun, like a bunch of guys hunting dogs out of boredom ...
Yeah I don't get these people who react so emotionally to the dog, it was obvious to me as a kid watching it the first time something had to be up with that dog. People are so soft and overtly emotional nowadays.
A cool detail is Norris had a bad heart when he was absorbed. Because of this, the Norris Thing also had a bad heart. It probably didn’t know or really take into consideration a defective heart from a good one. It simply copies the biology of the victim and blends in. This led to Norris Thing having a heart attack, as that’s what the perfectly copied heart would naturally do. The defibrillator shocks were perceived as an attack and forced Norris Thing to break it’s camouflage defend itself.
The Thing would have died if the defib wasn't used anyway, as the Thing suffers afflictions of it's hosts as a real human would. So from suffering form a heart attack, would also kill the thing.
46:23 Well, I mean, when they locked Blair out in that tool shed, they basically hung a giant sign on the building saying "HEY! Free target that you can convert any time you want with no one around and no chance of anyone seeing it happen!" They basically signed his death certificate then and there. You can tell that between the time MacReady first locks him in there, where Blair is warning him not to trust Clark... And the next time MacReady goes back there, when Blair is suddenly asking to be let back inside, there's a complete change in his demeanor. So I would say it would be relatively safe to assume with about a 99% degree of certainty that one of the things snuck out to that isolated tool shed and converted him at some point between those two scenes.
i made a comment elsewhere that Dr. Blair was likely infected first. All the other forms were simply distractions so that he could continue working on the craft.
When I was little this movie came on HBO (when it was new) and my mom was going out for something and she said "do not put on HBO, the thing is on and its not for you". I watched regular stuff and eventually my curiosity got the best of me and put it on, it was right when the Dogs faces opens up, 4 seconds and I was like "nope, nope, nope, whole lot of nope" and changed channel
16:40 That 'flower' thing that pops out is actually made up of the dog tongues and lined with canines. The Thing has the ability to shape shift into any of the organisms it has previously assimilated. That's why if you look carefully before those tongues pop out, you'll see human eyes on its body. Those are from the Norwegians it assimilated. It also retains the memories and behaviors of whatever it takes over, so it can blend in perfectly. No one knows who that silhouette is in the room. It's intentionally kept vague. John Carpenter used stuntman Dick Warlock's shadow so that the viewers would never know who the first infected was. This keeps the viewers paranoid, just like the members in the base. The Norwegian base they visit is actually the US base after it's blown up. They just filmed the Norwegian base visit scenes after they blew up the US base. Awesome reaction! I hope y'all also react to Carpenter's other movies as well as The Fly, The Blob, From Beyond, Re-Animator (the last two are HP Lovecraft stories). A lot of 80s horror movies are heavily inspired by Lovecraft's amazing cosmic horror stories. I highly recommend reading his stories.
16:50 The Dog Thing didn’t escape. It was cornered and attempted to put as much distance as it could between itself and the danger by lifting up and away to the ceiling. Later, Palmer Thing does the same when it jumps up to the ceiling to avoid the flamethrower. It seems like it’s some kind of instinctive _fight or flight_ response for the creature.
@@StevenJShow I suppose, it always seemed like it was kind of pinned by force, that might be how the actual stunt worked though instead of the in universe reason
26:40...Mate they were screwed already. What you don't seem to realise is Blair's not mad, he's the only one who's worked out what's going on and he's willing to sacrifice himself and his friends to save the World.
That or the thing was faking Blair being crazy so it could get the parts it needed to build the hovercraft. Blair was obviously the strongest of the things and was probably the main strain if you catch my drift lol
@@two-bearshigh-fiving9293But why would he go through the motions of investigating the body and running probabilities of who on the team could be infected ? He would already know if he was infected.
The theory I tend to go with from other stuff I've seen is that Blair was human until some indeterminate point after he is left in the tool shack. He even builds a noose when he realizes that with the crew wanting nothing to do with him and being locked up, he's essentially fucked. My assumption is that before he's able to kill himself he gets infected via someone else having easy access to due to isolation. Once he's a Thing, suicide stops being an option because it isn't Blair. He figured he can plead with Mac as a last ditch to get close, and when he can't, the Blair-Thing uses leftover scrap from Blair's earlier attempt at quarantining to build the ship.
6:43 The fact that you considered the possibility it may be the dog, I am going to award you with Surviving the Thing Challenge. You didn't automatically trust the dog.
I saw this right after it went to cable. Was visiting my old man and he says "You gotta see this"😂 So thankful I come from a whole family of Horror and SciFi fans, even my paternal grandparents. I can remember as a preschooler watching Dark Shadows daily with my grandmother. In 1968 the old man packed us kids up and took us to a drive-in to see Night of the Living Dead when i was about four years old. The theater had hired people(i assume) to wear zombie makeup and they were wandering through the lot terrorizing cars. We kids were losing our minds and my mother was too scared to go to the restroom and ended up peeing her pants. Treasured nemory but of course that would be considered abuse now days.
@@RaggedyPack It's all relative. Us old people grew up with films going back to the 30s which is awesome too. Such a goldmine. Check out Nosferatu, The Most Dangerous Game
Saw this first on Showtime during Memorial Day weekend 1983. I was 12. I didn’t sleep well for a week after. Then I had dreams about outbreaks in my neighborhood for the next decade. Now it’s one of my favorites.
I was 5 when my dad took me and my older brother to see this in the theater. Got to the dog scene and straight up fled. Dad didn’t notice until I had made it to the door. I didn’t see it again until I was married 😅
Another point of interest...When the dog enters the room and you see the persons shadow on the wall, it wasnt a cast member. Carpenter used a crewmember instead because he wanted it to be ambiguous to the audience.
@@DrewDragoon It looks like the guy who had the heart attack, cant remember his name, but it looked like his build..though shadows can distort your shape obviously.
It would be a lot harder to take down Wilford Brimley than you think. He was one tough hombre. Former marine, stuntman, blacksmith, and cowboy. He was an old badass. Quick edit: Carpenter has confirmed that Blair was NOT infected when he was first locked in the shed. Either Thing Palmer or Thing Norris got to him while he was out there, and in his new, enhanced state, he started building the spacecraft to escape.
People always wonder how it could of built the mini-ship so quickly, but we don't know how many arms/tentacles or whatever it could have at once if it wanted. Also we have no way of know what kinds of alien creature it had assimilated before arriving on Earth.
This is a creature that scares you increasingly the more you understand it. One piece of this falling to earth could take over everything. Animal life, plant life, bacteria, everything. I used to lay in bed imagining a meteorite made it to earth a mile away carrying a bit of the thing and wondering how much time I had before I'd encounter one of its kind, and whether I should let myself fall asleep.
Every single Thing reaction starts with "why is he shooting the dog." So interesting that you guys took it about a half step further..."maybe he thinks the dog is the thing" . No one ever guesses what if the dog is the thing?
The practical effects of the 80’s and 90’s is so unmatched like seriously it’s amazing how they managed to do this back then. Nowadays we rarely get any practical effects on this level.
YES!! BEST SCI FI HORROR FILM EVER MADE! Critics were not too kind to this movie, calling it "Boring, Dull, and A Wretched Excess." Roger Ebert gave it 2/4 and called it "A great barf bag movie." It bombed at the box office, making $19 million dollars against a $15 million dollars as it opened 2 weeks after ET was in theaters. However it's gained a cult following overtime and has been regarded as one of the best John Carpenter movies ever made. The blood test scene was on Bravos 100 Scariest Movie Moments, as MacCready tries to flush out the alien. The sounds of the Thing transformations are that of alligators, crocodiles, bears, rattlesnakes, horses, pigs squealing, and human screams played backwards or slowed down to make it sound otherworldly. The Dog Kennel Sequence was done by Oscar Winning VFX artist Stan Winston as Rob Bottin fell ill with pneumonia and had a bleeding ulcer. Winston remained uncredited until he received a "Special Thanks" during the credits. The opening scene was filmed in Juneau, Alaska, Vancouver British Columbia, Stewart, British Columbia Canada and Universal Studios Hollywood CA.
The critics and audiences were not that far off. I swear im not a hater but the special thing about this movie are the special effects. The story is not that compelling, the acting is passable, the characters are forgettable; the Kurt Russell character is ok but hes not Ellen Ripley. It's great that it has a cult following and i liked the movie, specillay knowing that in the future, this effects are going to be less and less common, but this is not the best scifi horror film of all time.
@@orangewarm1 hello there my friend hello anyway both Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott and The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter both of them are my all time favorite sci-fi horror movies ever created as well:).
@@Square-ow7oq hello my friend anyway Alien (1979) directed by Ridley and The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter both of them are on the top of my list as the greatest sci-fi horror movies ever created as well:).
The 1951 movie, "The Thing From Another World" is excellent, although they lacked the technology to do the shapeshifting effects and had to change it a little. Carpenter was a huge fan of it. It's from a 1938 science fiction story called "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr., a very interesting person who was primarily an editor. I don't think Blair was infected until he was in the shack. What he did in making communication with the outside world impossible and killing the dogs made perfect sense. You can find endless theorizing on the Internet about the last scene and whether one or the other of them is the thing. In 2011, they made a prequel. Some people don't like it, but I do.
3:45 to 3:46, at the start of the film, just after the opening title sequence, that shot of the jagged rock formation, that's not shaky cam, that's handheld cam. Shaky cam is when the person operating g the camera physically shakes the camera up and down and/or side to side.
The original guys who made the prosthetics for the requel (The Thing 2011) took the props they created and made their own horror film called Harbinger Down after the director scrapped all their hard work for cgi in the theatrical release of the film. It’s so much better than the 2011 Thing. You guys should check it out.
I'm really glad you guys liked this one. It's a great concept and likely would not be made in today's movie climate, not saying it can't but not likely. The suspense and tension is great, being secluded in a harsh environment like Antarctica is a very cool idea. You guys actually figured out the dog thing which most reactors don't catch on until the reveal in the dog cage, I thought it was pretty obvious when he started walking down the hallway intensely & looking out the window like it was thinking. What a great dog actor seriously. And Kurt Russell he's fantastic in this movie, the actors did a great job.
The prequel was made all practical then the studio got involved cgi over all of it because it was the big THING. Apparently the practical form does exist.
The prequel is actually a well written / acted film. The problem is most people can't separate the horrendous CGI from the rest of the movie. The creators had awesome looking practical effects prepared for the film but the studio took away all of the hard work and slapped some terrible CGI over it.
Matthew "loved the concept (...) suspense, mystery, (...) in just one setting". I strongly believe you guys should go even more vintage, back to original "12 angry men" from 1957. It is one of the gems of cinema and "it's crazy how much they did with so little".
I kind of enjoyed that movie except for two points. They completely ruined the spaceship continuity. And secondly, they should have relied more on practical effects. The CG was just… meh.
That movie is an abomination to human kind on the level of the thing (the creature itself), all copies should be burned before they spread. The concept of a prequel to any movie with a mystery at it's core and especially a paranoid mystery is just wrong.
John Carpenter's The Thing is a good candidate for top 5 best horror movie of all time...Not because of the effects which are impressive, not because of the acting which is good...but for the atmosphere alone. It's a pure isolation and paranoia masterclass of cinema ! You never know 100% who as been assimilated and you can't just leave...Even at the end, there many theories that they are either both human but have so much paranoia it doesn't matter and they will kill each other or one is the thing because there is no breath...Still analyzed today in order to figure out when in the movie characters were assimilated.
One of my favorites! Blew my mind when i first saw it. That head spider thing was next level. This movie and the fly as well which y’all should def check out have stellar practical effects along with great tragic stories. Dont see that too much now. So happy you all enjoyed it ❤️
This movie and the first Alien film, are literally the best example of horror films from the previous century. A masterclass in building tension and suspense, nothing more nothing less. Hitchcock was the master of suspense earlier, and these two directors (Carpenter and Scott) took it to the next level with the first true alien horror films. Mindblowingly good. Practical effects at their absolute best. They simply don't make them like this any more. I don't find the ending ambiguous at all. They would all die from freezing anyway just a matter of time. This was the way to deal with it. Just to be safe, everyone had to die. They could not afford to let anyone escape that place. The risk would be too huge.
time code: 46:22 - "so blair was infected the whole time." answer: dr. blair was infected by the escaped wolf-thing 2, that had escaped at time code: 16:12 when dr. blair was locked in the shed & tried to hang himself to death, by a noose, wolf-thing 2 had assimilated him, becoming dr. blair thing. as dr. blair-thing, it used it's incredible strength to dig an ice tunnel, removed the excess snow at night, to build a mini-space ship.
The Thing and Blade Runner opened the same night at the same theater in Hollywood. My friends and I drove down to see Blade Runner but it was sold out so we went into the thing and a completely packed house that went absolutely crazy
The best part about the keys to the blood bags is that Windows way early on got the keys from Gary and he was never turned into the thing meaning he likely just dropped or misplaced the keys during panic.
The blood test to this day is still the greatest jump scare of all time...I've seen that movie like 10 times and i know it's coming and it's still effective !!
There is a prequal that takes place at The Norwegian station. Some of the CGI was really bad but overall expanded on Carpenter's story and is worth the watch. The end is awesome with a transition into the 1982 film with Ennio Morricone's Humanity, Part II score playing. After watching it makes you want to jump back in and watch this one immediately after.
I read that in an interview Kurt Russell said he was sitting on a flamethrower, and that the bottle of alcohol was *supposed* to be gasoline. Childs didn't notice when he drank it so MacReady knew it was The Thing. Also note: Childs' coat changes from when he was at the door to the end.
Based on the dvd commentary, the point of the ending is to maintain the theme of paranoia throughout the film, so you leave the cinema not knowing who is the thing or not. Carpenter felt that to tell the audience at the end would detract from that. But they are both definitely dead.
The Antarctic research station maintained a team of huskies because a dog sled team is the most efficient way to travel through snow and ice over a perpetually frozen landscape.
Cool to see how The Thing learns and gets more efficient throughout the movie. Its direct approach leads to subpar results, then it opts for a more covert strategy, singling people out one by one. The dog is also one of the best dog-actors in any film ever. The hallway scene is so creepy before it walks into the room.
FILM LORE IS - At the end of the film, Childs shows himself to be the Thing. This is because McReady passes Childs a drink from a molotov cocktail (many molotovs were just used to set the station on fire) and after drinking the gasoline, Childs makes NO COMMENT. A human would not drink from the bottle because of the smell, or would spit the gasoline out immediately, but the Thing has no reference to the smell or taste of ANY fluid and as a result, 'outs' itself to McReady's final test at the end of the film...
Interesting Facts: Norris (the guy who’s chest bursts open, chopping off the doctor’s hands with its bear-trap teeth) had a bad heart, and when the Thing took him over and perfectly imitated him, it also faithfully recreated his heart defect, which eventually caused Norris to suffer a heart attack for real during a high-stress moment. The Thing would have been happy to hide itself in a presumably “dead” body, but it couldn’t tolerate the electro-shocks from the defibrillator and was thus forced to reveal itself. (Incidentally, at the beginning of the movie, the spaceship was flying erratically because the crew was desperately trying to fight off the Things that were aboard their vessel and causing havoc. That’s why the spaceship attempted to make an emergency landing on the nearest planet and ended up crash landing in the Antarctic. Only one of the Things as survived the crash and made it out of the ship alive, only to freeze in the ice.)
There's a couple problems with this theory, in my opinion. The big one being this. The "heart" in the Norris Thing isn't actually a heart. It's a heart shaped cluster of Thing cells. It wouldn't suffer a heart attack. Another thing, in my opinion anyway, Norris was a Thing when they went to investigate the crash site. If the Norris Thing's "heart" could suffer a heart attack, the climb in and/or out of the pit would have "killed" it.
@@Lucklaran It did suffer a heart attack. It's in the script. It's in the TV broadcast version overseen by John Carpeneter which explicitly lays out the background of each character in the beginning. It has been talked about in some of the BTS footage. Norris had a heart attack. Norris Thing perfectly replicated his heart condition. The Thing is a sleeper agent, it *perfecly* imitates.
@@StevenJShow If the little bit of exertion we see him do with those boards was enough to give him a heart attack, the climb into or out of the pit with the ufo should have similarly "killed" him. That or you expect me to believe it took less effort to climb a rope up an ice wall. If that's true, then it's one of the stupidest decisions made in this movie. As for the rest, I consider relying on external sources(anything not included directly in the movie/show) to be a weak argument at best. If they wanted that info to be pertinent to the story, it should have been included in the movie. But, you do you.
@Lucklaran You can shovel a snowy driveway 1000 times and have a massive heart attack on 1001. They blow when they blow. ... And the thing cells were replicating a very complex biological system. Completely. It was essentially 100% human in construction, but existed as a self aware collection of cells. So it absolutely could and would replicate the cardiovascular systems responses. (and flaws)
@@tommc3622 See, I think the issue I have with that "100% reproduction" is when Blair says "what appears to be, anyway, a normal set of internal organs". Then he lists several organs and says they "Seem to be normal." The key words here are appears and seem. Then during the dog Thing autopsy, he says the imitation is perfect, but then goes on to say "This for instance, that's not dog. It's imitation." Finally, if you look in the "chest cavity" at 35:57 There are clearly no internal organs. So you're telling me it can restructure all it's fake internal organs in seconds, to create a mouth to eat his arms, but can't fix a faulty heart? One that it clearly does not even need to live? The Norris head Thing certainly didn't need it when it detached itself and crawled away. It allowed itself to be rendered imobile and vulnerable because a copy of an organ it doesn't actually need to survive stopped working? I'm sorry, but in my opinion, that's asinine. The "blood" that crawled away during the blood test scene definitely didn't seem to need the Palmer Thing's "heart" to move around. Look, I love this movie, it's one of my top 5. But I don't let that blind me to the serious flaws this movie has. Anyway, that's the last I'm going to say about this issue.
Norris had a heart condition which the thing copied. The morphine had nothing to do with it. The ending is perfect for this movie because the whole movie is about wondering who has been taken over.
There’s a short story somewhere online that tells the story from the things point of view. It sees itself as a kind of missionary and has a religious fervor in spreading itself. It can’t understand single minded organisms like humans and deeply considers them offensive and inferior.
I've watched so many reactions to this movie where they all don't make the connection to the infected husky as fast as you guys did. You clocked how the film score gets more ominous whenever the dog is in frame. So many don't notice. Good catch. The petri dish blood test jumpscare got me the same way it got Corey when i first watched it waaaaay back when! 😱😂 Understandable/relatable. Since 1986, I've watched/re-watched The Thing so many times over, the shots of the tortured huskies in mid absorption absolutely 💀 me and break my cold dead heart. THAT is how great of a testament it is to the four decades old practical FX. I think the addition of the bright green alien fleshy process as the head is pulling away from the body to turn into the spider-like head is a great idea. A nice otherworldly touch and contrast to all the blood stained flesh of it all.. So glad you guys enjoyed it. Give the 2011 prequel a watch. Curious to know your thoughts.
There’s a prequel based around the norweigen camp it shows what happens to the norweigens that found and dug it up it’s focused around what happened at the norweigen camp and Blair was infected when he was alone locked up the thing got to him it tends to attack you when your alone in the dark for example
The best thing of this movie is that there are many theories on who got infected first and how and who survived and who didn't... And the best thing is that they all make sense and Carpenter himself refuses to adress any of them. But know... When MacReady gave Childs the booze, the Things leitmotif music was playing.
This is my favorite Carpenter movie. They are a loose trilogy for apocalypse. I think They Live is a great follow-up. Carpenter has never revealed if either was infected at the end. Blair touches the body with the eraser and then touches the eraser to his lips. Carpenter used a stunt double for when the dog infects the guy in the room. It most likely was Norris. Windows drops the keys when he sees Bennings getting converted. That's how the blood gets sabotaged. This film is a masterpiece about paranoia.
Someone mentioned The Thing (2011) prequel. It's really just that in technicality, it's essentially a remake (or "requel"), but one of those remakes that don't do well outside of the 80's (like the Robocop, Total Recall & Poltergeist remakes). What's worse is that they were going to use practical effects, to capture what Carpenter did, but settled on CGI, that didn't look good with the atmosphere and mood they were trying to create, so you have your characters terrified of something made of CGI from The Scorpion King (2002).
"Nobody suspects the dog"; except for actual Norwegians because the guy chasing the dog was literally telling everyone all about in Norwegian. Which did not get changed out in Norway for the viewing :D
They all assume "someone" doing the sabotage. But nobody went near it. The Thing sabotaged the blood from within the cabinet, just like it does when mimicking lifeforms. 😮😊
@@orangewarm1 why would the entity risk exposing itself when it's fully capable doing the dsnsge from within? And in doing so cresting even more paranoia, which it feeds off of? I find it the most elegant solution, so I'm going with that. In fact I've always thought so, ever since I saw the movie at age 7... Wonder why my life turned out weird. 😂
It attacks when it's exposed. Otherwise, it does it quietly, like with Norris (the shadow, always looked like Norris to me). 1) With the dogs, it layed down and observed, to see if they will react. It saw they sensed that something was wrong, so it attacked (All the crew was supposed to be asleep at the time, so here maybe, it wanted to assimilate the dogs while the humans were sleeping). 2) With Bennings, if Windows wouldn't have returned, nobody would've known Bennings was assimilated. 3) With the Norris-thing, the shock of the defibrillator seemed like an attack on it. So it attacked back. 4) The Palmer-thing didn't know if the blood test will work, so it played along. When it was exposed, that's when it attacked. Mac said, that every cell, every part, acts on it's own. A blood sample doesn't have the intelligence that has a full copie of a human. so it reacted and exposed the Palmer-thing. 5) The way Garry was caught, quietly, it's probably the way the thing prefers to do it, more chances of success and survival. Also, there's that part that escaped from the kettle, where did it go? It probably was the part that got to Blair, while Blair was locked up outside (JC said that Blair wasn't infected in the scene with the pencil, the pencil thing wasn't even in the script. So it had to happen in some other way).
A couple of subtle clues that I haven't heard any reactors mention. When Childs mentions that Blair killed the rest of the dogs, Clark (the dog hander) runs to check on them. That is a human emotional reaction that I don't think that the Things level of mimicry would have him do. Palmer is a major weedhead, but at some point he just isn't doing it anymore. Is it because he's been replaced or just a reaction to the circumstance? We don't know, but it is worth mentioning.
I can't believe there are still people out there that haven't seen The Thing. I was 14 when I saw it on a late night horror channel and I was immediately hooked, the SFX were far ahead of the time and scared the living s--- out of me. I'm now 44 and I have watched The Thing more times than I've had hot meals. 😂
The Thing turned out REALLY good! The effects were crazy and movie was pretty freaky.
We React to The Thing 2011 Prequel: ua-cam.com/video/_6TOS0R3mrc/v-deo.html
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Oh can’t wait for those two…
50:30 there is a prequel in 2011 also called ‘The Thing’. Not as good as this but a decent film so maybe check that out.
Sure, this is another take on John Campbell's story, but that story was already an "adaptation" of an HP Lovecraft's story.
Congrats you three on picking up on the door shadow the dog went into in the first part of the movie. That was how I figured out who was. The ending has been argued for 40 years if either were the thing. The movie "The Thing" from 2011 is the Norwegian story before Mac and Copper flew to find the burned out site.
My take on the Noose was the thing taunting Humans to kill themselves like the Norwegians Killed themselves !
Blake chiming in and all but apologizing for them not knowing who Kurt Russell is was everything 😂😂😂
Wyatt looks so much like him at this age
It was funny but it wasn't everything
@@SandraMorris51no
Ugh...Milennials/Zoomers. 🤦♂️. He was friggin' Star Lord's DAD!
The dog deserves all the treats because he was such a good actor! So unsettling.
He was such a good boy.
That dog scared everybody on set.
It's mother was mated with a wolf and the wolf side was definitely the dominant one.
It never barked,it never growled, it never made a sound.
Anyone who's owned a husky knows how incredibly vocal they are.
He was an eerie dog, for sure...but what about the dog that had to chew its way through the fence...he deserves some recognition
A half husky half wolf named Jed, born in captivity. He was in a few movies.
That dog was also in White Fang with Ethan Hawke! Such a good canine actor.
Everyone: Awww, poor doggo, don't hurt the doggo!
Everyone, about 15 minutes later: KILL IT, KILL IT WITH FIRE!
Most people do have that initial reaction, and it's a clear example of emotion over logic. Logically, especially when the Norwegian goes for the grenades, it's clear he's pretty desperate to kill this dog. He's not trying to casually hunt the thing, they're scientific researchers in Antarctica for crying out loud, the odds of someone who'd sadistically hunt a dog for no reason getting onto such a team is close to 0. Therefore he has to be trying to kill the dog for a reason. In fact, the only logical thing for the Americans to do in that situation, even after they shoot back and kill the Norwegian, is to immediately isolate the dog inside of a pen or room by itself and away from other dogs and humans, because being in Antarctica (an environment that hasn't been carefully studied), the most logical assumption to make after witnessing such a desperate attempt to kill the dog is that it's probably infected by an unknown disease or parasite endemic to Antarctica and not present elsewhere. Even if you think maybe the Norwegian just got pissed the dog attacked him, and felt it needed to be put down, you should still immediately isolate the dog until you can be sure of that because you can't take that kind of risk. To be honest, the American team responded *very* stupidly in the film, by letting the dog just wander around for awhile, and then finally putting it in a pen with other dogs. But when you see most viewers of the film having the emotional reaction of "Awww, poor puppers, don't hurt it you awful person!" towards the Norwegian, you can also understand why the American team behaved so stupidly. Because many people will have, and will prioritize, that emotional reaction over logically thinking about the situation. And prioritizing emotion over logic is a fast way to produce very bad results in dangerous situations.
The first time i watchedthe movie and saw the norwegians shot the dog i imediatly became suspicious of the dog. There had to be a good reason why the shot was being chased and shot at. I find it strange too many people don't pick on that. I mean, they are norwegians, if there is a dog friendly people that's them given their long tradition of using dogs in their artic projects.
I first watched it while randomly channel surfing without know the movie's title or have any idea its a horror movie about aliens, going in completely without any background info, no way I or anyone would think there is something wrong with the dog ....
Naturally I thought they were shooting the dog for fun, like a bunch of guys hunting dogs out of boredom ...
Yeah I don't get these people who react so emotionally to the dog, it was obvious to me as a kid watching it the first time something had to be up with that dog. People are so soft and overtly emotional nowadays.
When I first saw this film I had that pooch marked as suspect from the opening minutes, I thought it was obvious. People be stupid.
The defibrillator is why the thing showed it self. It took it as an attack.
A cool detail is Norris had a bad heart when he was absorbed. Because of this, the Norris Thing also had a bad heart. It probably didn’t know or really take into consideration a defective heart from a good one. It simply copies the biology of the victim and blends in.
This led to Norris Thing having a heart attack, as that’s what the perfectly copied heart would naturally do.
The defibrillator shocks were perceived as an attack and forced Norris Thing to break it’s camouflage defend itself.
@@Gunnar001 Probably didn't even had the concept of a bad heart.
The Thing would have died if the defib wasn't used anyway, as the Thing suffers afflictions of it's hosts as a real human would. So from suffering form a heart attack, would also kill the thing.
@@Gunnar001 Good points! A defibrillator stops the heart's electrical activity. The alien wouldn't know.
@@JynxedKoma It seemed to survive being burned and decapitated pretty well.
This one of those movies that proves great practical effects age better than alot of CGI
46:23 Well, I mean, when they locked Blair out in that tool shed, they basically hung a giant sign on the building saying "HEY! Free target that you can convert any time you want with no one around and no chance of anyone seeing it happen!" They basically signed his death certificate then and there. You can tell that between the time MacReady first locks him in there, where Blair is warning him not to trust Clark... And the next time MacReady goes back there, when Blair is suddenly asking to be let back inside, there's a complete change in his demeanor. So I would say it would be relatively safe to assume with about a 99% degree of certainty that one of the things snuck out to that isolated tool shed and converted him at some point between those two scenes.
100% agree! Also, he was the only one that the Thing had enough time to do a full assimilation, without anyone interrupting the process.
Also, the unused Hangman's noose. He must have been assimilated before he could finish himself off. He tried to escape assimilation but failed.
i made a comment elsewhere that Dr. Blair was likely infected first. All the other forms were simply distractions so that he could continue working on the craft.
Them: "Kurt Russell? I feel like I've heard that before..."
Me: "WTF"
Blake: "So sorry"
Lol. Like, seriously, nearly unforgivable.
They need to watch Escape From New York now.
The Hateful 8 was Tarantino's homage to this movie - even starred Kurt Russel
I am amused at how Matthews head an upper body matches The Thing poster image below... was that deliberate?
I was just thinking about that and immediately went to the comments to find someone mentioning it lol
I came into the comments to mention the same thing. Well played if it was intentional
Thank you! I was looking for this comment. I was like, I hope someone else noticed! 😂
@@GoodTimeForARollme too! lol 😂
When I was little this movie came on HBO (when it was new) and my mom was going out for something and she said "do not put on HBO, the thing is on and its not for you". I watched regular stuff and eventually my curiosity got the best of me and put it on, it was right when the Dogs faces opens up, 4 seconds and I was like "nope, nope, nope, whole lot of nope" and changed channel
🤣
16:40 That 'flower' thing that pops out is actually made up of the dog tongues and lined with canines. The Thing has the ability to shape shift into any of the organisms it has previously assimilated. That's why if you look carefully before those tongues pop out, you'll see human eyes on its body. Those are from the Norwegians it assimilated. It also retains the memories and behaviors of whatever it takes over, so it can blend in perfectly.
No one knows who that silhouette is in the room. It's intentionally kept vague. John Carpenter used stuntman Dick Warlock's shadow so that the viewers would never know who the first infected was. This keeps the viewers paranoid, just like the members in the base.
The Norwegian base they visit is actually the US base after it's blown up. They just filmed the Norwegian base visit scenes after they blew up the US base.
Awesome reaction! I hope y'all also react to Carpenter's other movies as well as The Fly, The Blob, From Beyond, Re-Animator (the last two are HP Lovecraft stories). A lot of 80s horror movies are heavily inspired by Lovecraft's amazing cosmic horror stories. I highly recommend reading his stories.
16:50
The Dog Thing didn’t escape. It was cornered and attempted to put as much distance as it could between itself and the danger by lifting up and away to the ceiling.
Later, Palmer Thing does the same when it jumps up to the ceiling to avoid the flamethrower.
It seems like it’s some kind of instinctive _fight or flight_ response for the creature.
My question is how the hell did palmer stay up there that long
@@baneh1329 I mean it can imitate all kinds of things. The fiber material found on spider legs on a large scale? Adhesive goo?
@@StevenJShow I suppose, it always seemed like it was kind of pinned by force, that might be how the actual stunt worked though instead of the in universe reason
21:20...The dog didn't bite Bennings when it walked under the Poker table, it just knocked into the leg he'd been shot in. 🙄
There is no survival no matter what option you choose. If no one is the thing, they freeze to death. If one is the thing, then you already know.
26:40...Mate they were screwed already. What you don't seem to realise is Blair's not mad, he's the only one who's worked out what's going on and he's willing to sacrifice himself and his friends to save the World.
Exactly. He was trying to save humanity.
That or the thing was faking Blair being crazy so it could get the parts it needed to build the hovercraft. Blair was obviously the strongest of the things and was probably the main strain if you catch my drift lol
@@two-bearshigh-fiving9293But why would he go through the motions of investigating the body and running probabilities of who on the team could be infected ? He would already know if he was infected.
@two-bearshigh-fiving9293 I think the infection was afterwards when he was isolated and an easier target. Remember the Hangman's noose he never used.
The theory I tend to go with from other stuff I've seen is that Blair was human until some indeterminate point after he is left in the tool shack. He even builds a noose when he realizes that with the crew wanting nothing to do with him and being locked up, he's essentially fucked. My assumption is that before he's able to kill himself he gets infected via someone else having easy access to due to isolation. Once he's a Thing, suicide stops being an option because it isn't Blair. He figured he can plead with Mac as a last ditch to get close, and when he can't, the Blair-Thing uses leftover scrap from Blair's earlier attempt at quarantining to build the ship.
6:43 The fact that you considered the possibility it may be the dog, I am going to award you with Surviving the Thing Challenge. You didn't automatically trust the dog.
I saw this right after it went to cable. Was visiting my old man and he says "You gotta see this"😂
So thankful I come from a whole family of Horror and SciFi fans, even my paternal grandparents. I can remember as a preschooler watching Dark Shadows daily with my grandmother.
In 1968 the old man packed us kids up and took us to a drive-in to see Night of the Living Dead when i was about four years old. The theater had hired people(i assume) to wear zombie makeup and they were wandering through the lot terrorizing cars. We kids were losing our minds and my mother was too scared to go to the restroom and ended up peeing her pants. Treasured nemory but of course that would be considered abuse now days.
Vintage film?! I'm gonna go into a corner and cry now.
Vintage is good. They don't make em like they used to
@@RaggedyPack It's all relative. Us old people grew up with films going back to the 30s which is awesome too. Such a goldmine. Check out Nosferatu, The Most Dangerous Game
I was 19 when it came out...was blown away then and blown away now.
Saw this first on Showtime during Memorial Day weekend 1983. I was 12. I didn’t sleep well for a week after. Then I had dreams about outbreaks in my neighborhood for the next decade. Now it’s one of my favorites.
Jeez, I think you and I saw it on the same weekend! Was visiting my old man, so I know it was a long weekend, and he turned me on to it.
I was 5 when my dad took me and my older brother to see this in the theater. Got to the dog scene and straight up fled. Dad didn’t notice until I had made it to the door.
I didn’t see it again until I was married 😅
@@nannyogtha See also: Me, Jaws, age 5, 1976, ran to the back just before Quint got chomped...
And then 2019 happened.
Another point of interest...When the dog enters the room and you see the persons shadow on the wall, it wasnt a cast member. Carpenter used a crewmember instead because he wanted it to be ambiguous to the audience.
Damn, that's evil 😂
The shadow was Dick Warlock, who was Micheal Myers in Halloween 2.
I tend to prefer it's Palmer
@@DrewDragoon It looks like the guy who had the heart attack, cant remember his name, but it looked like his build..though shadows can distort your shape obviously.
It would be a lot harder to take down Wilford Brimley than you think. He was one tough hombre. Former marine, stuntman, blacksmith, and cowboy. He was an old badass.
Quick edit: Carpenter has confirmed that Blair was NOT infected when he was first locked in the shed. Either Thing Palmer or Thing Norris got to him while he was out there, and in his new, enhanced state, he started building the spacecraft to escape.
Plus, all that quaker oatmeal ‼️☮️
People always wonder how it could of built the mini-ship so quickly, but we don't know how many arms/tentacles or whatever it could have at once if it wanted. Also we have no way of know what kinds of alien creature it had assimilated before arriving on Earth.
@@LoricSwift good point ☮️
@@CherylHughes-ts9jz Quaker Oats. It's the right *thing* to do.
This is a creature that scares you increasingly the more you understand it. One piece of this falling to earth could take over everything. Animal life, plant life, bacteria, everything. I used to lay in bed imagining a meteorite made it to earth a mile away carrying a bit of the thing and wondering how much time I had before I'd encounter one of its kind, and whether I should let myself fall asleep.
Every single Thing reaction starts with "why is he shooting the dog." So interesting that you guys took it about a half step further..."maybe he thinks the dog is the thing" . No one ever guesses what if the dog is the thing?
We're usually horribly off with our guesses
That was my reaction to the first time I watch this movie 19 year ago
Best movie to show a girl. They're innate animal lovers so they get up in arms for the dog in the beginning but once it's revealed, "kill that dog"
@@RaggedyPack If you spoke Norwegian, you'd have known right away. The guy yelled, "Get away! That isn't a dog, it's some kind of thing!"
The practical effects of the 80’s and 90’s is so unmatched like seriously it’s amazing how they managed to do this back then. Nowadays we rarely get any practical effects on this level.
Definitely! Practical effects stand the test of time and really gives the actors something to work with and react to.
American Werewolf in London is still one of my favorite practical effects movie. The ever-rotting friend gag terrified kid me and tickled adult me.
YES!!
BEST SCI FI HORROR FILM EVER MADE!
Critics were not too kind to this movie, calling it "Boring, Dull, and A Wretched Excess."
Roger Ebert gave it 2/4 and called it "A great barf bag movie."
It bombed at the box office, making $19 million dollars against a $15 million dollars as it opened 2 weeks after ET was in theaters.
However it's gained a cult following overtime and has been regarded as one of the best John Carpenter movies ever made.
The blood test scene was on Bravos 100 Scariest Movie Moments, as MacCready tries to flush out the alien.
The sounds of the Thing transformations are that of alligators, crocodiles, bears, rattlesnakes, horses, pigs squealing, and human screams played backwards or slowed down to make it sound otherworldly.
The Dog Kennel Sequence was done by Oscar Winning VFX artist Stan Winston as Rob Bottin fell ill with pneumonia and had a bleeding ulcer. Winston remained uncredited until he received a "Special Thanks" during the credits.
The opening scene was filmed in Juneau, Alaska, Vancouver British Columbia, Stewart, British Columbia Canada and Universal Studios Hollywood CA.
Yes, Stan Winston and Rob Bottin genius😊🎉🎉
Alien?
The critics and audiences were not that far off. I swear im not a hater but the special thing about this movie are the special effects. The story is not that compelling, the acting is passable, the characters are forgettable; the Kurt Russell character is ok but hes not Ellen Ripley. It's great that it has a cult following and i liked the movie, specillay knowing that in the future, this effects are going to be less and less common, but this is not the best scifi horror film of all time.
@@orangewarm1 hello there my friend hello anyway both Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott and The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter both of them are my all time favorite sci-fi horror movies ever created as well:).
@@Square-ow7oq hello my friend anyway Alien (1979) directed by Ridley and The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter both of them are on the top of my list as the greatest sci-fi horror movies ever created as well:).
The 1951 movie, "The Thing From Another World" is excellent, although they lacked the technology to do the shapeshifting effects and had to change it a little. Carpenter was a huge fan of it. It's from a 1938 science fiction story called "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr., a very interesting person who was primarily an editor.
I don't think Blair was infected until he was in the shack. What he did in making communication with the outside world impossible and killing the dogs made perfect sense.
You can find endless theorizing on the Internet about the last scene and whether one or the other of them is the thing.
In 2011, they made a prequel. Some people don't like it, but I do.
I loved the cliffhanger of an ending this movie had. Definitely one of my top Sci-Fi/Horror films.
The movie on Halloween was “a thing from another world”…the original 50’s version of The Thing.
Blake apologising made me laugh more than I would love to admit😂😂
3:45 to 3:46, at the start of the film, just after the opening title sequence, that shot of the jagged rock formation, that's not shaky cam, that's handheld cam. Shaky cam is when the person operating g the camera physically shakes the camera up and down and/or side to side.
The original guys who made the prosthetics for the requel (The Thing 2011) took the props they created and made their own horror film called Harbinger Down after the director scrapped all their hard work for cgi in the theatrical release of the film. It’s so much better than the 2011 Thing. You guys should check it out.
The Producers forced the CGI. Not the director.
@@dubuyajay9964 movie still bombed
@@heymima1990 I know that. I am stating who forced the bad decision.
I'm really glad you guys liked this one. It's a great concept and likely would not be made in today's movie climate, not saying it can't but not likely. The suspense and tension is great, being secluded in a harsh environment like Antarctica is a very cool idea. You guys actually figured out the dog thing which most reactors don't catch on until the reveal in the dog cage, I thought it was pretty obvious when he started walking down the hallway intensely & looking out the window like it was thinking. What a great dog actor seriously. And Kurt Russell he's fantastic in this movie, the actors did a great job.
There is a prequel to The Thing that came out in 2011 with Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton. It’s quite underrated.
Joel Edgerton
@@w1975b Thanks
It's underrated for a reason: it stinks.
The prequel was made all practical then the studio got involved cgi over all of it because it was the big THING.
Apparently the practical form does exist.
The prequel is actually a well written / acted film. The problem is most people can't separate the horrendous CGI from the rest of the movie. The creators had awesome looking practical effects prepared for the film but the studio took away all of the hard work and slapped some terrible CGI over it.
Matthew "loved the concept (...) suspense, mystery, (...) in just one setting". I strongly believe you guys should go even more vintage, back to original "12 angry men" from 1957. It is one of the gems of cinema and "it's crazy how much they did with so little".
There is a prequel to this movie, also called The Thing (2011). It takes place at the Norwegian camp.
I kind of enjoyed that movie except for two points. They completely ruined the spaceship continuity. And secondly, they should have relied more on practical effects. The CG was just… meh.
Which we absolutely didn't need.
Sadly it's a real shit movie.
@@omega311888The production team did really good practical effects on set. The studio insisted they all be digitally replaced.
That movie is an abomination to human kind on the level of the thing (the creature itself), all copies should be burned before they spread. The concept of a prequel to any movie with a mystery at it's core and especially a paranoid mystery is just wrong.
In general, these parts of the film should have been watched in this order first 2011, and after 1982 ! to keep the chronology
9:22 "bro, this is a sick base..." -Matthew
you ain't seen nothing yet ... they have flamethrowers!
John Carpenter's The Thing is a good candidate for top 5 best horror movie of all time...Not because of the effects which are impressive, not because of the acting which is good...but for the atmosphere alone. It's a pure isolation and paranoia masterclass of cinema ! You never know 100% who as been assimilated and you can't just leave...Even at the end, there many theories that they are either both human but have so much paranoia it doesn't matter and they will kill each other or one is the thing because there is no breath...Still analyzed today in order to figure out when in the movie characters were assimilated.
One of my favorites! Blew my mind when i first saw it. That head spider thing was next level. This movie and the fly as well which y’all should def check out have stellar practical effects along with great tragic stories. Dont see that too much now.
So happy you all enjoyed it ❤️
The time where audiences weren't hand fed endings. Excellent
"Watch Clarke... Closely" wasn't directed to MacReady, but to us, the audience, as a deflection of our attention.
This movie and the first Alien film, are literally the best example of horror films from the previous century.
A masterclass in building tension and suspense, nothing more nothing less. Hitchcock was the master of suspense earlier, and these two directors (Carpenter and Scott) took it to the next level with the first true alien horror films. Mindblowingly good. Practical effects at their absolute best. They simply don't make them like this any more.
I don't find the ending ambiguous at all. They would all die from freezing anyway just a matter of time. This was the way to deal with it. Just to be safe, everyone had to die. They could not afford to let anyone escape that place. The risk would be too huge.
Ayyyyy hell yeah!
One I think yall might like (even Blake) is “Poltergeist” from 1982.
time code: 46:22 - "so blair was infected the whole time."
answer: dr. blair was infected by the escaped wolf-thing 2, that had escaped at time code: 16:12
when dr. blair was locked in the shed & tried to hang himself to death, by a noose,
wolf-thing 2 had assimilated him, becoming dr. blair thing.
as dr. blair-thing, it used it's incredible strength to dig an ice tunnel, removed the excess snow at night, to build a mini-space ship.
The Thing and Blade Runner opened the same night at the same theater in Hollywood. My friends and I drove down to see Blade Runner but it was sold out so we went into the thing and a completely packed house that went absolutely crazy
And they both at time of release got horrible reviews and bombed.
That’s the craziest part.
The best part about the keys to the blood bags is that Windows way early on got the keys from Gary and he was never turned into the thing meaning he likely just dropped or misplaced the keys during panic.
Absolutely classic. I’m always amazed how good the special effects are- practical is everything!
27:06 i swear he's saying " watch him close, do you hear WE?"
The movie poster was painted by Drew Struzman.The painting is shown in the studio of the artist in the opening scene of The Mist.
The blood test to this day is still the greatest jump scare of all time...I've seen that movie like 10 times and i know it's coming and it's still effective !!
There is a prequal that takes place at The Norwegian station. Some of the CGI was really bad but overall expanded on Carpenter's story and is worth the watch. The end is awesome with a transition into the 1982 film with Ennio Morricone's Humanity, Part II score playing. After watching it makes you want to jump back in and watch this one immediately after.
20:15 "you all saw the thing." -Igli
excellent point.
12:45 The prequel of The Thing in 2011 shows how that monster came to be.
The movie ends with the Norwegians chasing the dog..
This film has the most effective jumpscares, in my opinion.
It was the Thing from another world that was playing on the TV un Halloween, 1952 i think....or 51 🤣
I bet it was John Carpenter's way of saying. *Hey, I'm about to remake this film in the near future*
I read that in an interview Kurt Russell said he was sitting on a flamethrower, and that the bottle of alcohol was *supposed* to be gasoline. Childs didn't notice when he drank it so MacReady knew it was The Thing. Also note: Childs' coat changes from when he was at the door to the end.
“I have no idea what the Thing is?”
I know that everybody loves the Apocalypse Trilogy but CHRISTINE is well worth a reaction.
Based on the dvd commentary, the point of the ending is to maintain the theme of paranoia throughout the film, so you leave the cinema not knowing who is the thing or not. Carpenter felt that to tell the audience at the end would detract from that. But they are both definitely dead.
i love ambiguity!
The Antarctic research station maintained a team of huskies because a dog sled team is the most efficient way to travel through snow and ice over a perpetually frozen landscape.
Where's Blake? I think he would really enjoy this one 🤣🤣🤣
32:20 the thing was in his brain when he made that noose, and it took over before he could use it
Cool to see how The Thing learns and gets more efficient throughout the movie. Its direct approach leads to subpar results, then it opts for a more covert strategy, singling people out one by one.
The dog is also one of the best dog-actors in any film ever. The hallway scene is so creepy before it walks into the room.
"Hey, Sweden!"
"They are Nowegian..."
I heard they play this movie every time they get new people at the real Antarctic station!
There is a comic that gives a Canon ending and answer to the last two characters standing.
i require the knowledge, what is the answer?
Fun fact, the brain hates loose endings, it's psychology. They use loose endings on soap operas to keep you watching for years.
Yeah the sunglasses are for the snow
FILM LORE IS - At the end of the film, Childs shows himself to be the Thing.
This is because McReady passes Childs a drink from a molotov cocktail (many molotovs were just used to set the station on fire) and after drinking the gasoline, Childs makes NO COMMENT.
A human would not drink from the bottle because of the smell, or would spit the gasoline out immediately, but the Thing has no reference to the smell or taste of ANY fluid and as a result, 'outs' itself to McReady's final test at the end of the film...
A classic! Can't believe this movie flopped in theater, such a shame. Time really gave it it's due.
Interesting Facts: Norris (the guy who’s chest bursts open, chopping off the doctor’s hands with its bear-trap teeth) had a bad heart, and when the Thing took him over and perfectly imitated him, it also faithfully recreated his heart defect, which eventually caused Norris to suffer a heart attack for real during a high-stress moment. The Thing would have been happy to hide itself in a presumably “dead” body, but it couldn’t tolerate the electro-shocks from the defibrillator and was thus forced to reveal itself. (Incidentally, at the beginning of the movie, the spaceship was flying erratically because the crew was desperately trying to fight off the Things that were aboard their vessel and causing havoc. That’s why the spaceship attempted to make an emergency landing on the nearest planet and ended up crash landing in the Antarctic. Only one of the Things as survived the crash and made it out of the ship alive, only to freeze in the ice.)
There's a couple problems with this theory, in my opinion. The big one being this. The "heart" in the Norris Thing isn't actually a heart. It's a heart shaped cluster of Thing cells. It wouldn't suffer a heart attack. Another thing, in my opinion anyway, Norris was a Thing when they went to investigate the crash site. If the Norris Thing's "heart" could suffer a heart attack, the climb in and/or out of the pit would have "killed" it.
@@Lucklaran It did suffer a heart attack. It's in the script. It's in the TV broadcast version overseen by John Carpeneter which explicitly lays out the background of each character in the beginning. It has been talked about in some of the BTS footage. Norris had a heart attack. Norris Thing perfectly replicated his heart condition. The Thing is a sleeper agent, it *perfecly* imitates.
@@StevenJShow If the little bit of exertion we see him do with those boards was enough to give him a heart attack, the climb into or out of the pit with the ufo should have similarly "killed" him. That or you expect me to believe it took less effort to climb a rope up an ice wall. If that's true, then it's one of the stupidest decisions made in this movie.
As for the rest, I consider relying on external sources(anything not included directly in the movie/show) to be a weak argument at best. If they wanted that info to be pertinent to the story, it should have been included in the movie.
But, you do you.
@Lucklaran You can shovel a snowy driveway 1000 times and have a massive heart attack on 1001. They blow when they blow.
...
And the thing cells were replicating a very complex biological system. Completely.
It was essentially 100% human in construction, but existed as a self aware collection of cells.
So it absolutely could and would replicate the cardiovascular systems responses. (and flaws)
@@tommc3622 See, I think the issue I have with that "100% reproduction" is when Blair says "what appears to be, anyway, a normal set of internal organs". Then he lists several organs and says they "Seem to be normal." The key words here are appears and seem. Then during the dog Thing autopsy, he says the imitation is perfect, but then goes on to say "This for instance, that's not dog. It's imitation." Finally, if you look in the "chest cavity" at 35:57 There are clearly no internal organs. So you're telling me it can restructure all it's fake internal organs in seconds, to create a mouth to eat his arms, but can't fix a faulty heart? One that it clearly does not even need to live? The Norris head Thing certainly didn't need it when it detached itself and crawled away. It allowed itself to be rendered imobile and vulnerable because a copy of an organ it doesn't actually need to survive stopped working? I'm sorry, but in my opinion, that's asinine. The "blood" that crawled away during the blood test scene definitely didn't seem to need the Palmer Thing's "heart" to move around. Look, I love this movie, it's one of my top 5. But I don't let that blind me to the serious flaws this movie has.
Anyway, that's the last I'm going to say about this issue.
Norris had a heart condition which the thing copied. The morphine had nothing to do with it. The ending is perfect for this movie because the whole movie is about wondering who has been taken over.
1:00 The Thing from Another World (1951)
Corey gets 2 points.
Blair was infected sometime between his trashing the helicopter/radio and making a noose, and when he said he was ok and wanted to come back inside.
Didnt grow up watching pokemon but did grow up watching The Thing, Robocop, Terminator, and Aliens, they had the coolest toys too : D
80's kids toys were something else!
The reactor guy in the middle's upper torso lines up perfectly with the bottom half of the guy on the thing poster 😂
I love how I didn't realize that windows was terrified that he was the thing and he didn't know it.The blood scene is great
I recommended this to you all, so I’m just going to take credit for this madness!
There’s a short story somewhere online that tells the story from the things point of view. It sees itself as a kind of missionary and has a religious fervor in spreading itself. It can’t understand single minded organisms like humans and deeply considers them offensive and inferior.
Not just that, it pities them. Thinks their damaged.
Matthew just standing there with his arms out.
Bennings freaking in the snow is the scariest part imo. ❄️🔥👹🔥❄️
I've watched so many reactions to
this movie where they all don't make the connection to the infected husky as fast as you guys did.
You clocked how the film score gets
more ominous whenever the dog is
in frame. So many don't notice.
Good catch.
The petri dish blood test jumpscare
got me the same way it got Corey when
i first watched it waaaaay back when!
😱😂 Understandable/relatable.
Since 1986, I've watched/re-watched The Thing so many times over, the shots of the tortured huskies in mid absorption absolutely 💀 me and break my cold dead heart.
THAT is how great of a testament it
is to the four decades old practical FX.
I think the addition of the bright green alien fleshy process as the head is pulling away from the body to turn into the spider-like head is a great idea.
A nice otherworldly touch and contrast to all the blood stained flesh of it all..
So glad you guys enjoyed it.
Give the 2011 prequel a watch.
Curious to know your thoughts.
horror always makes for the best reactions. this is one of my favorite movies ever
The whole thing went into the ceiling and then got burned. It didn’t split. Notice how he fired the flamethrower upwards
There’s a prequel based around the norweigen camp it shows what happens to the norweigens that found and dug it up it’s focused around what happened at the norweigen camp and Blair was infected when he was alone locked up the thing got to him it tends to attack you when your alone in the dark for example
41:53 - NO. They are not connected. The entire point of the test is that each individual piece is independent and will try to seek its own survival.
The best thing of this movie is that there are many theories on who got infected first and how and who survived and who didn't... And the best thing is that they all make sense and Carpenter himself refuses to adress any of them.
But know... When MacReady gave Childs the booze, the Things leitmotif music was playing.
This is my favorite Carpenter movie. They are a loose trilogy for apocalypse. I think They Live is a great follow-up.
Carpenter has never revealed if either was infected at the end.
Blair touches the body with the eraser and then touches the eraser to his lips.
Carpenter used a stunt double for when the dog infects the guy in the room. It most likely was Norris.
Windows drops the keys when he sees Bennings getting converted. That's how the blood gets sabotaged.
This film is a masterpiece about paranoia.
49:11 Take a closer look - Childs character has turned into an alien, he has no steam from behind his mouth, like Macready
Someone mentioned The Thing (2011) prequel. It's really just that in technicality, it's essentially a remake (or "requel"), but one of those remakes that don't do well outside of the 80's (like the Robocop, Total Recall & Poltergeist remakes). What's worse is that they were going to use practical effects, to capture what Carpenter did, but settled on CGI, that didn't look good with the atmosphere and mood they were trying to create, so you have your characters terrified of something made of CGI from The Scorpion King (2002).
I love watching The Thing reactions.🤣They are the best.
"Nobody suspects the dog"; except for actual Norwegians because the guy chasing the dog was literally telling everyone all about in Norwegian. Which did not get changed out in Norway for the viewing :D
They all assume "someone" doing the sabotage. But nobody went near it. The Thing sabotaged the blood from within the cabinet, just like it does when mimicking lifeforms. 😮😊
Not sure that's accurate. Windows drops the keys. There is a timeline of infection online somewhere.
@@orangewarm1 why would the entity risk exposing itself when it's fully capable doing the dsnsge from within? And in doing so cresting even more paranoia, which it feeds off of? I find it the most elegant solution, so I'm going with that. In fact I've always thought so, ever since I saw the movie at age 7... Wonder why my life turned out weird. 😂
21:39 "😯" -Igli
the eyebrow raise.
03:22. Based on the Title Card from the original 50's film.
This is the movie where Mac burned Windows...
wonder if you guys caught the infection timeline and who had the keys remember 21:50 .... plenty of time to take them in the chaos of the moment
It attacks when it's exposed. Otherwise, it does it quietly, like with Norris (the shadow, always looked like Norris to me).
1) With the dogs, it layed down and observed, to see if they will react. It saw they sensed that something was wrong, so it attacked (All the crew was supposed to be asleep at the time, so here maybe, it wanted to assimilate the dogs while the humans were sleeping).
2) With Bennings, if Windows wouldn't have returned, nobody would've known Bennings was assimilated.
3) With the Norris-thing, the shock of the defibrillator seemed like an attack on it. So it attacked back.
4) The Palmer-thing didn't know if the blood test will work, so it played along. When it was exposed, that's when it attacked. Mac said, that every cell, every part, acts on it's own. A blood sample doesn't have the intelligence that has a full copie of a human. so it reacted and exposed the Palmer-thing.
5) The way Garry was caught, quietly, it's probably the way the thing prefers to do it, more chances of success and survival.
Also, there's that part that escaped from the kettle, where did it go? It probably was the part that got to Blair, while Blair was locked up outside (JC said that Blair wasn't infected in the scene with the pencil, the pencil thing wasn't even in the script. So it had to happen in some other way).
Awesome Movie and Work Guys, Thanks!!! 👍👍😎 Greetings from Helsinki, Finland🇫🇮🇺🇸🇫🇮🇺🇸
A couple of subtle clues that I haven't heard any reactors mention. When Childs mentions that Blair killed the rest of the dogs, Clark (the dog hander) runs to check on them. That is a human emotional reaction that I don't think that the Things level of mimicry would have him do. Palmer is a major weedhead, but at some point he just isn't doing it anymore. Is it because he's been replaced or just a reaction to the circumstance? We don't know, but it is worth mentioning.
I can't believe there are still people out there that haven't seen The Thing. I was 14 when I saw it on a late night horror channel and I was immediately hooked, the SFX were far ahead of the time and scared the living s--- out of me. I'm now 44 and I have watched The Thing more times than I've had hot meals. 😂