The Thing

Dir: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

2011

***

I don’t like remakes, I don’t like re-boots and I generally despise the idea behind prequels. They almost never work. I certainly don’t like the idea of making a remake/re-boot/prequel of a classic film. Producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman already committed the cardinal sin by remaking Dawn of the Dead, even if it did turn out to be a guilty pleasure. However, I think the idea behind 2011’s The Thing is actually rather clever and holds it’s own as a concept. The two producers searched through the Universal Studios library to find new properties to work on. Upon finding John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing, the two convinced Universal to create a prequel instead of a remake, as they felt that remaking Carpenter's film would be like "painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa". Nicely put, and I know producers have to prove themselves while also making money with limited funds, but the idea of looking over old films to remake leaves me cold. These guys leave me less cold however. Eric Newman explained; "I'd be the first to say no one should ever try to do Jaws again and I certainly wouldn't want to see anyone remake The Exorcist - we really felt the same way about The Thing. It's a great film. But once we realized there was a new story to tell, with the same characters and the same world, but from a very different point of view, we took it as a challenge. It's the story about the guys who are just ghosts in Carpenter's movie – they're already dead. But having Universal give us a chance to tell their story was irresistible.” For once, I totally agreed. Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. became involved in the project when his first planned feature film – Army of the Dead - was cancelled. He was hired to directed the sequel to the Dawn of the Dead remake - a zombie film that would take place in Las Vegas - that was written and would be produced by Zack Snyder, who directed the Dawn of the Dead remake. It was cancelled just three weeks before production. Needing to start all over again, he asked his agent to see if there was a Thing-like project in development, since Alien and The Thing are his favorite films. As a fan of Carpenter's film, he was interested in the project because, being European himself, he had always wondered what happened at the Norwegian camp. In March 2009, Ronald D. Moore described his script as a "companion piece" to Carpenter's film and "not a remake”. “We're telling the story of the Norwegian camp that found the Thing before the Kurt Russell group did". Eric Heisserer was later hired to do a complete rewrite of Moore's script. Heisserer explained that in writing the script, it was necessary for him to research all the information that was revealed about the Norwegian camp from the first film, down to the smallest details, so that it could be incorporated into the prequel in order to create a consistent backstory. The decision was made to name the film the same title as the first film, because the producers felt adding a "colon title" such as Exorcist II: The Heretic had felt less reverential. Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. explained that he created the film not to simply be a horror film, but to also focus largely on the human drama with the interaction between characters, as the first film had. The director felt that horror films worked better when time was spent to explore the characters' emotional journeys, allowing the audience to care about them. The story was a lot more like The Thing From Another World and the novel Who Goes There? on which it was adapted from with the characters being educated scientists as opposed to "blue collar" workers as seen in Carpenter’s version. I think there were too many American’s in it personally and I would have liked to have seen it filmed entirely in Norwegian but I liked Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s ‘Ellen Ripley’ take on the lead role and the all important feelings of paranoia and distrust were in place much like the 1982 film. The writers wisely ignored the story behind the popular 2002 The Thing video game, even though Carpenter has confirmed it is canon and the official sequel to his 1982 film. Overall the story is the same, just a little different in places. An alien spacecraft is discovered beneath the Antarctic ice by a team from a Norwegian research base. Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is recruited by Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) and his assistant Adam Finch (Eric Christian Olsen) to investigate. They travel to the Norwegian base, Thule Station, in a helicopter piloted by Sam Carter (Joel Edgerton) and Derek Jameson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). After viewing the spacecraft, Kate, Sander, and Adam are told the group also discovered an alien body from the crash, buried in the ice nearby. The body is brought to the base in a block of ice. That evening, while the team celebrates, Derek sees the alien burst from the ice and escape the building. The team searches for the creature. Olav and Henrik find it, and Henrik is killed. The rest of the group set fire to the creature, killing it. An autopsy reveals that its cells were imitating Henrik's own. Derek, Carter, Griggs and a sick Olav take the helicopter to seek help. Kate discovers dental fillings near a blood-soaked shower. She runs outside to flag down the helicopter. When it attempts to land, Griggs transforms and attacks Olav. The helicopter spins out of control and crashes in the mountains. Kate finds the shower has been cleaned up and tells the team that the alien survived, and replicates itself by imitating its victims. The team decides to send a party to the closest base over Kate's objections. When she and Juliette look for the vehicles' keys to prevent anyone from leaving, Juliette transforms and tries to attack Kate, but she flees past Karl, who is killed by the creature. Lars arrives with a flamethrower and burns the creature just as it begins to absorb Karl. That night Carter and Derek stumble back to the base. Not certain humans could have survived the crash, Kate has them isolated until a test can be prepared. Adam and Sander start work on a test, but the lab is burned when left briefly unattended. Kate thinks of another test based on the absence of dental fillings, isolating those without them: Sander, Edvard, Adam, and Colin. Lars and Jonas go to retrieve Carter and Derek for testing, and discover they have escaped. As Lars searches a building, he is suddenly pulled inside. The group hears Carter and Derek breaking into their own building and rushes to intercept them. In the middle of a standoff, Edvard orders Peder to burn them. Before he can, Derek shoots Peder dead in self-defense, but also punctures the flamethrower's fuel tank, setting off an explosion that knocks Edvard unconscious. When brought to the rec room, Edvard transforms and infects Jonas and kills Derek before assimilating Adam. Kate torches the infected Jonas and Derek's body before she and Carter pursue the creature. Sander is ambushed. Colin hides in the radio room. Carter is cornered in the kitchen, but Kate burns the creature. A replaced Sander drives off into the night, pursued by Kate and Carter in the remaining snowcat. They arrive at the spacecraft, which suddenly activates and its engines begin to crack the ice covering it. Kate falls into the ship and explores it, finally confronted by the Sander-creature. Kate kills it with a grenade and the explosion shuts down the ship's engines. Kate and Carter escape and Carter suggests driving to a Soviet base about fifty miles away. Kate notices that Carter is missing an earring he wore and becomes suspicious: she knew he was human earlier because he was still wearing it. Carter points the wrong ear when she confronts him. Kate burns him, and his scream is alien. She retreats to Sander's snowcat. In a scene that runs alternating with the credits, a helicopter pilot, Matias, arrives by morning at the now destroyed Norwegian outpost. He shouts, looking for any survivors. Colin is shown to have committed suicide in the radio room using a straight razor to slash both his arms and throat to ensure the Thing could never get to him. Matias sees the charred remains of the Adam/Edvard-Thing in the snow. Lars, still alive and uninfected, orders Matias at gunpoint to show his dental fillings to prove that he is human. The Thing, having taken the form of Lars' dog, runs out of the camp. Lars realizes it's the Thing and orders Matias to start the helicopter. As the dog flees, they give chase in the helicopter, Lars leaning out and shooting at it with a scoped rifle. This last scene is the first scene of the 1982 version. It’s very well written and gives us fans of the original another chance to see the film again without it being a total rip-off, even though that is kind of what it is. I liked it a lot, of course it is no way near as cool as the 1982 version but I still enjoyed it. The set pieces fit well in comparison to the original and the music wasn’t too bad either given the greatness of Carpenter’s now iconic soundtrack. The special effects of the first film are hard to beat and the new effects were a little too CGI for my liking but they had some neat ideas about them. It is a tidy film that knows the importance of continuity. It was unnecessary but certainly not sacrilege.

The Thing

Dir: John Carpenter

1982

*****

John Carpenter is definitely responsible for my favorite horror film of all time, I’m just not sure whether it is Halloween, Prince of Darkness or his 1982 masterpiece The Thing. I think The Thing might just have the edge. While Carpenter was hugely influenced by Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby's 1951 film The Thing from Another World, his version, like the original, was an adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There?. It was released in 1982 to very negative reviews. It was described as "instant junk" by one critic and "a wretched excess" by another, and proposed as the most hated film of all time. Reviews both praised the special effects achievements and criticized their visual repulsiveness, while others focused on poor characterization. The film earned $19.6 million during its theatrical run. Many reasons have been cited for its failure to impress audiences, competition from films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which offered an optimistic take on alien visitation; a summer that had been filled with successful science fiction and fantasy films; and an audience, living through a recession, diametrically opposed to The Thing's nihilistic tone. How wrong they were, as not long after the film became one of the biggest cult horrors of all time. It is a masterpiece. Finding its feet in realms of home entertainment, The Thing is one of the key films that popularised the VHS market. Development of the film began in the mid-1970s when producers David Foster and Lawrence Turman suggested an adaptation of Who Goes There? to Universal Pictures. It had been loosely adapted once before but Foster and Turman wanted to develop a project that stuck more closely to the source material. Screenwriters Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins held the rights to make an adaptation, but passed on the opportunity to make a new film, so Universal obtained the rights from them. In 1976, Wilbur Stark had purchased the remake rights to 23 RKO Pictures films, including The Thing from Another World, from three Wall Street financiers who did not know what to do with them, in exchange for a return when the films were produced. Universal in turn acquired the rights to remake the film from Stark, resulting in him being given an executive producer credit on all print advertisements, posters, television commercials, and studio press material. John Carpenter was first approached about the project in 1976 by co-producer and friend Stuart Cohen, but Carpenter was mainly an independent film director, so Universal chose The Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper as they already had him under contract. The producers were ultimately unhappy with Hooper and his writing partner Kim Henkel's concept. After several more failed pitches by different writers, and attempts to bring on other directors, such as John Landis, the project was put on hold. Even so, the success of Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction horror film Alien helped revitalize the project, at which point Carpenter became loosely attached following his success with horror classic Halloween. Carpenter was reluctant to join the project as he thought Hawks's adaptation would be difficult to surpass, although he considered the film's monster to be unnotable. Cohen suggested that he read the original. Carpenter found the "creepiness" of the imitations conducted by the creature, and the questions it raised, interesting. Carpenter drew parallels between the novel and Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None, and noted that the story of Who Goes There? was "timely" for him, meaning he could make it "true to his day" as Hawks had in his time. Carpenter, a fan of Hawks's adaptation, paid homage to it in Halloween, and he watched The Thing from Another World several times for inspiration before filming began. Carpenter and cinematographer Dean Cundey first worked together on Halloween, and The Thing was their first big-budget project for a major film studio. Universal initially set a budget of $10 million, with a modest $200,000 for "creature effects," which at the time was more than the studio had ever allocated to a monster film. Filming was scheduled to be completed within 98 days. Universal's production studios estimated that it would require at least $17 million before marketing and other costs, as the plan involved more set construction, including external sets and a large set piece for the original scripted death of Bennings, which was estimated to cost $1.5 million alone. As storyboarding and designs were finalised, the crew estimated they would need at least $750,000 for creature effects, a figure Universal executives agreed to after seeing the number of workers employed under Rob Bottin, the special make-up effects designer. Bottin, who had previously worked with Carpenter on The Fog, designed the majority of the special effects. When he joined the project in mid-1981, pre-production was in progress, but no design had been settled on for the alien. Artist Dale Kuipers had created some preliminary paintings of the creature's look, but he left the project after being hospitalised following a traffic accident before he could develop them further with Bottin. Carpenter conceived the Thing as a single creature, but Bottin suggested that it should be constantly changing and able to look like anything. Carpenter initially considered Bottin's description of his ideas as "too weird", and had him work with Ploog to sketch them instead. As part of the Thing's design, it was agreed anyone assimilated by it would be a perfect imitation and would not know they were the Thing. The actors spent hours during rehearsals discussing whether they would know they were the Thing when taken over. Clennon said that it did not matter, because everyone acted, looked and smelled exactly the same before being taken over. At its peak, Bottin had a 35-person crew of artists and technicians, and he found it difficult to work with so many people. To help manage the team, he hired Erik Jensen, a special effects line producer who he had worked with on The Howling, to be in charge of the special make-up effects unit. In designing the Thing's different forms, Bottin explained that the creature had been all over the galaxy. This allowed it to call on different attributes as necessary, such as stomachs that transform into giant mouths and spider legs sprouting from heads. Bottin said the pressure he experienced caused him to dream about working on designs, some of which he would take note of after waking. One abandoned idea included a series of dead baby monsters, which was deemed "too gross". Bottin admitted he had no idea how his designs would be implemented practically, but Carpenter did not reject them. Carpenter said, "what I didn't want to end up with in this movie was a guy in a suit ... I grew up as a kid watching science-fiction monster movies, and it was always a guy in a suit.” According to Cundey, Bottin was very sensitive about his designs, and worried about the film showing too many of them. At one point, as a preemptive move against any censorship, Bottin suggested making the creature's violent transformations and the appearance of the internal organs more fantastical using colors. The decision was made to tone down the color of the blood and viscera, although much of the filming had been completed by that point. The creature effects used a variety of materials including mayonnaise, creamed corn, microwaved bubble gum, and K-Y Jelly. During filming, then-21-year-old Bottin was hospitalized for exhaustion, double pneumonia, and a bleeding ulcer, caused by his extensive workload. Bottin himself explained he would "hoard the work", opting to be directly involved in many of the complicated tasks. His dedication to the project saw him spend over a year living on the Universal lot. Bottin said he did not take a day off during that time, and slept on the sets or in locker rooms. To take some pressure off his crew, Bottin enlisted the aid of special effects creator Stan Winston to complete some of the designs, primarily the Dog-Thing. With insufficient time to create a sophisticated mechanical creature, Winston opted to create a hand puppet. A cast was made of makeup artists Lance Anderson's arm and head, around which the Dog-Thing was sculpted in oil-based clay. The final foam-latex puppet, worn by Anderson, featured radio-controlled eyes and cable-controlled legs, and was operated from below a raised set on which the kennel was built. Slime from the puppet would leak onto Anderson during the two days it took to film the scene, and he had to wear a helmet to protect himself from the explosive squibs simulating gunfire. Anderson pulled the tentacles into the Dog-Thing and reverse motion was used to create the effect of them slithering from its body. Winston refused to be credited for his work, insisting that Bottin deserved sole credit; Winston was given a "thank you" in the credits instead. In the infamous "chest chomp" scene, Dr. Copper attempts to revive Norris with a defibrillator. Revealing himself as the Thing, Norris-Thing's chest transforms into a large mouth that severs Copper's arms. Bottin accomplished this scene by recruiting a double amputee and fitting him with prosthetic arms filled with wax bones, rubber veins and Jell-O. The arms were then placed into the practical stomach mouth where the mechanical jaws clamped down on them, at which point the actor pulled away, severing the false arms. The effect of the Norris-Thing's head detaching from the body to save itself took many months of testing before Bottin was satisfied enough to film it. The scene involved a fire effect, but the crew were unaware that fumes from the rubber foam chemicals inside the puppet were flammable. The fire ignited the fumes, creating a large fireball that engulfed the puppet. It suffered only minimal damage after the fire had been put out, and the crew successfully filmed the scene. A good horror film should always be more than its special effects but the brilliant work by Bottin and his team here is phenomenal and of the highest quality. When one of the characters says “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me” when one of the team’s heads falls off and turns into a spider, he takes the words straight out of the audience’s mouth and Bottin is to thank for it. It’s a wonderful piece of cinema. Kurt Russell, who was good friends with the director, was involved in the production before being cast, helping Carpenter develop his ideas. Russell was actually the last actor to be cast. Carpenter had worked with Russell twice before, but wanted to keep his options open. Discussions with the studio involved using actors Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, or Nick Nolte, who were either unavailable or declined, and Sam Shepard, who showed interest but was never pursued. Ernie Hudson was the front-runner to play Childs and was almost cast until they met with Keith David. The Thing was David's first film, and coming from a theater background, he had to learn on set how to hold himself back and not show every emotion his character was feeling. Carpenter also wanted to cast Donald Pleasence, but it was decided that he was too recognizable to accommodate any of the roles. The rest of the cast were made up of A. Wilford Brimley, T. K. Carter, David Clennon, Richard Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, and Thomas Waites – all solid actors much like in the 1951 version. The story begins once more in Antarctica. We see a Norwegian helicopter pursue and shoot at a sled dog as it runs to an American research station. The Americans witness the Norwegian passenger accidentally blow up the helicopter and himself from a distance. A Norwegian on the ground fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry. The American helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady, and Dr. Copper leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burned remains of a malformed humanoid which they recover to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, performs autopsies on the remains and finds a normal set of human organs. Clark kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs their own dogs. This disturbance alerts the team and Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the new creature and learns that it can perfectly imitate other organisms. Recovered Norwegian data leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried flying saucer, and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Norris estimates that the saucer has been buried for at least 100,000 years. Blair grows paranoid that the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation. The "dead", malformed humanoid creature assimilates an isolated Bennings, but Windows interrupts the process and MacReady burns the Bennings-Thing. Blair sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent escape. The team imprison him in a tool shed. Copper suggests a test to compare each member's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning that the blood stores have been destroyed, the men lose faith in Garry, and MacReady takes command. MacReady, Windows and Nauls find Fuchs's burnt corpse and surmise he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while MacReady and Nauls investigate MacReady's shack. On their return, Nauls abandons MacReady in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack. The team debate whether to allow MacReady inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. The following scene is cinematic gold. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head separates from the body, grows giant spider legs and walks off before also being burnt. MacReady is forced to kill Clark in self-defense when he refuses to follow MacReady's orders. He hypothesizes that the Norris-Thing's head demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life form with its own survival instinct. He sequentially tests blood samples with a heated piece of wire. Everyone passes the test except Palmer, whose blood jumps from the heat. Palmer transforms and infects Windows after his head turns into a giant mouth and bites his head off, forcing MacReady to burn them both. Childs is left on guard while the others go to test Blair. They find that Blair has escaped, and has been using vehicle components to craft a small spaceship. On their return, Childs is missing and the power generator is destroyed. MacReady speculates that the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. MacReady, Garry, and Nauls decide to detonate the station to destroy the Thing. As they set explosives, Blair kills Garry and Nauls disappears. Blair transforms into an enormous creature and destroys the detonator. MacReady triggers the explosives using a stick of dynamite, destroying the base. MacReady sits nearby as the camp burns. Childs returns, saying he became lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of scotch. The ending is beautifully ambiguous and stays with you for a very long time. Carpenter filmed multiple endings, including a happier ending because editor Todd Ramsay thought that the bleak, nihilistic conclusion would not test well with audiences. In the alternate take, MacReady is rescued and given a blood test that proves he is not infected. Carpenter said that stylistically this ending would have been "cheesy". Editor Verna Fields was tasked with reworking the ending to add clarity and resolution. It was finally decided to create an entirely new scene, which omitted the suspicion of Childs being infected by removing him completely, leaving MacReady alone. This new ending tested only slightly better with audiences than the original, and the production team agreed to the studio's request to use it. It was set to go to print for theaters when the producers, Carpenter, and executive Helena Hacker decided that the film was better left with ambiguity instead of nothing at all. Carpenter gave his approval to restore the ambiguous ending, but a scream was inserted over the outpost explosion to posit the monster's death. Universal executive Sidney Sheinberg disliked the ending's nihilism and, according to Carpenter, said, "Think about how the audience will react if we see the Thing die with a giant orchestra playing". Carpenter later noted that both the original ending and the ending without Childs tested poorly with audiences, which he interpreted as the film simply not being heroic enough. To hell with test audiences. All good horror films are either left ambiguous or are unhappy and for me the ending to The Thing, as well as everything else about it, is perfect.

The Thing from Another World

Dir: Howard Hawks, Christian Nyby

1951

*****

John Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic The Thing was based on John W. Campbell’s 1938 short story Who Goes There? but it wasn’t the first adaptation. In 1951, Christian Nyby – under Howard Hawk’s guidance – directed his version of the now famous story and in doing so changed the horror film forever. Back in 1951 horror films were sensational and very few relied on real science or indeed intelligent ideas. Horror films were generally directed by what special effects the studios could come up with and which big name actors they could get to star in them. The Thing from Another World enjoys great special effects and some great actors and you could even call it sensationalist, but what really makes the film so great is the intelligent script and screenplay. There is no overacting and the ‘mystery’ follows logic and only logic. It is a thinking man’s horror, if you will. The film stars Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, and Douglas Spencer, none of them found great success in their acting careers although Kenneth Tobey and Robert Cornthwaite both became cult heroes in later life. I’ve never understood it, as their performances are so real and perfect in the film. Melodrama was sadly the style of the day and this is the only reason I can think of as to why they were so often overlooked. I love an old 50s b-movie and often the lower the budget the better the film was but there was something different about The Thing from Another World that made it feel a little more mature than all the others. I certainly never felt the same levels of suspense or horror than I did with the others, with William Cameron Menzies’s 1953 Invaders from Mars being the only exception. The Thing from Another World was still the first. It begins as a United States Air Force crew is dispatched from Anchorage, Alaska at the request of Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), the chief scientist of a North Pole scientific outpost. They have evidence that an unknown flying craft has crashed in their vicinity, so reporter Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer) tags along for the story. Dr. Carrington later briefs Captain Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his airmen, and Dr. Redding (George Fenneman) shows photos of a flying object moving erratically before crashing - not the movements of a meteorite. Following erratic magnetic pole anomalies, the crew and scientists fly to the crash site where the mysterious craft lies buried beneath refrozen ice. As they spread out to outline the craft's general shape, the men realize they are standing in a circle; they have discovered a crashed flying saucer. They try de-icing the buried craft with thermite heat bombs, but only ignite its metal alloy, causing an explosion that destroys the saucer. Their Geiger counter then points to a slightly radioactive frozen shape buried nearby in the refrozen ice. They excavate a large block of ice around what appears to be a tall body and fly it to the research outpost, just as a major storm moves in, cutting off their communications with Anchorage. Some of the scientists want to thaw out the body, but Captain Hendry insists on waiting until he receives further instructions from the Air Force. Later, Corporal Barnes (William Self) takes the second watch over the ice block and to avoid looking at the body within, covers it with an electric blanket that the previous guard left turned on. As the ice slowly melts, the Thing inside revives; Barnes panics and shoots at it with his sidearm, but the alien escapes into the raging storm. The Thing is attacked by sled dogs and the airmen recover a severed arm. A microscopic examination of a tissue sample reveals that the arm is vegetable rather than animal matter, demonstrating that the alien is a very advanced form of plant life. As the arm warms to ambient temperature, it ingests some of the dogs' blood covering it, and the hand begins moving. Seed pods are discovered in the palm. The Air Force personnel believe the creature is a danger to all of them, but Dr. Carrington is convinced that it can be reasoned with and has much to teach them. Carrington deduces their visitor requires blood to survive and reproduce. He later discovers the body of a dead sled dog hidden in the outpost's greenhouse. Carrington has Dr. Voorhees (Paul Frees), Dr. Olsen (William Neff) and Dr. Auerbach stand guard overnight, waiting for The Thing to return. Carrington secretly uses blood plasma from the infirmary to incubate seedlings grown from the alien seed pods. The strung-up bodies of Olsen and Auerbach are discovered in the greenhouse, drained of blood. Dr. Stern is almost killed by the Thing but escapes. Hendry rushes to the greenhouse after hearing about the bodies, and is attacked by the alien. Hendry slams the door on the Thing's regenerated arm as it tries to grab him. The alien then escapes through the greenhouse's exterior door, breaking into another building in the compound. Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), Carrington's secretary, reluctantly updates Hendry when he asks about missing plasma and confronts Carrington in his lab, where he discovers the alien seeds have grown at an alarming rate. Following Nicholson's suggestion, Hendry and his men lay a trap in a nearby room: after dousing the alien with buckets of kerosene, they set it ablaze with a flare gun, forcing it to jump through a closed window into the Arctic storm. Nicholson notices that the temperature inside the station is falling; a heating fuel line has been sabotaged by the alien. The cold forces everyone to make a final stand near the generator room. They rig an electrical "fly trap", hoping to electrocute their visitor. As the Thing advances, Carrington shuts off the power and tries to reason with it, but is knocked aside. On Hendry's direct order that nothing of the Thing remain, it is reduced by arcs of electricity to a smoldering pile of ash; Dr. Carrington's growing seed pods and the Thing's severed arm are destroyed as well. When the weather clears, Scotty files his "story of a lifetime" by radio to a roomful of reporters in Anchorage. Scotty begins his broadcast with a warning: "Tell the world. Tell this to everybody, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies". The last line is now synonymous with alien-themed sci-fi but very few people know its origins. It is an amazing horror considering the villain is large vegetable, indeed, James Arness complained that his "Thing" costume made him look like a giant carrot. The beginning of the film is eerily basic and unlike any other sci-fi/horror of the time. No actors are named during the film's dramatic "slow burning letters through background" opening title sequence and the plot elements were kept a secret before the film was released in cinemas. The film took full advantage of the national feelings of the time to help enhance the horror elements of the story. The film reflected a post-Hiroshima skepticism about science and negative views of scientists who meddle with things better left alone. In the end it is American servicemen and several sensible scientists who win the day over the alien invader. This is about good science rather than bad science. The film was loosely adapted by Charles Lederer, with uncredited rewrites from Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht from the story by John W. Campbell, Jr (who went by the pseudonym Don A. Stuart) that was first published in Astounding Science Fiction. The film's screenplay changes the fundamental nature of the alien as presented in Campbell's original: Lederer's "Thing" is a humanoid life form whose cellular structure is closer to vegetation, although it must feed on blood to survive; reporter Scott even refers to it in the film as a "super carrot." The internal, plant-like structure of the creature makes it impervious to bullets (but not to other destructive forces). Campbell's "Thing" is a life form capable of assuming the physical and mental characteristics of any living thing it encounters; this characteristic was later realized in John Carpenter's 1982 adaptation. Carpenter, along with many other successful directors, sites the film as being hugely influential on his own work and with the advantage of better cameras and special effects, he made a fitting tribute and one of the greatest horror films of all time. The big controversy surround the film though is over who actually directed it. There is debate as to whether the film was directed by Hawks with Christian Nyby receiving the credit so that Nyby could obtain his Director's Guild membership, or whether Nyby directed it with considerable input in both screenplay and advice in directing from producer Hawks for Hawks' Winchester Pictures, which released it through RKO Radio Pictures Inc. Hawks gave Nyby only $5,460 of the $50,000 director's fee that RKO paid and kept the rest, but Hawks denied that he directed the film. Cast members disagree on Hawks' and Nyby's contributions. Tobey said that "Hawks directed it, all except one scene" while, on the other hand, Fenneman said that "Hawks would once in a while direct, if he had an idea, but it was Chris' show." Cornthwaite said that "Chris always deferred to Hawks, ... Maybe because he did defer to him, people misinterpreted it." Although Self has said that "Hawks was directing the picture from the sidelines", he also has said that "Chris would stage each scene, how to play it. But then he would go over to Howard and ask him for advice, which the actors did not hear ... Even though I was there every day, I don't think any of us can answer the question. Only Chris and Howard can answer the question.” William Self, who later became President of 20th Century Fox Television, said, "Chris was the director in our eyes, but Howard was the boss." At a reunion of The Thing cast and crew members in 1982, Nyby said “Did Hawks direct it? That's one of the most inane and ridiculous questions I've ever heard, and people keep asking. That it was Hawks' style. Of course it was. This is a man I studied and wanted to be like. You would certainly emulate and copy the master you're sitting under, which I did. Anyway, if you're taking painting lessons from Rembrandt, you don't take the brush out of the master's hands.” Perfectly put in my opinion but either way, it’s an outstanding film that crosses several genres that was only surpassed in 1982.