The Thing

Just read the Billson BFI book in one sitting. Really excellent stuff, and very interesting to me for its sections focusing on compare/contrast with the Campbell novella and the Hawks film.

She really has a good eye for Carpenter's directing and structure, too. The little moments of brilliant misdirection (Clark's scalpel, Childs and Garry pushing back on Mac during the blood test), the singularly excellent casting and characterization, the escalating isolation (winter, storm approaching, no one answering, destroyed comms), etc.

Not much of this is really extremely new to me, but it's still so fascinating and nice to read something from someone who was deeply, deeply getting it at a point when so many critics were still thoroughly missing the point.

Just saw this in the theater for the first time. It’s a totally different movie with a crowd.

Finally got round to watching this before the apocalypse

This story is an interesting take

The Things by Peter Watts

There is also Adam Roberts's THE THING ITSELF.

"This was one of the first movies where the Black guy lasts to the final scene. I don’t think I’m the only brother who’s ever survived in a horror or sci-fi movie, but I’m certainly one of the few. It was great foresight on John’s part"

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/25/john-carpenter-kurt-russell-the-thing-horror-classic

And in a situation where you don't really know which, between two people, actually "survived," adding to the fun

Playing the next few days at Film Forum as part of their Out of the 80s retro.

Enjoyed this but maybe the Hawks is still better

tying james redd to the rec room sofa and making him decide which film is better is my mcready moment

*pulses flamethrower a little, to test it has the juice just in case*

lmao

You're gonna find out what you already know, MacReady.

Have you watched the Norwegian prequel?

It’s pointless.

Yeah, seemed to be from the description

Hadn't realized John Carpenter had directed the Kurt Russell made-for-TV Elvis.

One thing this one has going for it is that Carpenter restored much of the original plot of "Who Goes There?" including the characters's names but also the shape-shifting aspects of the alien and the related testing at the end.

TIL (well YIL) that Charles K. Feldman was Howard Hawks's agent, that Hawks's business partner in the 1951 production Edward Lasker was married to Jane Greer (much to the consternation of Howard Hughes) and that Margaret Sheridan who played Nikki was a Hawksian protogée orignally slated to appear in Red River (where Nyby supposedly saved the day with his editing which is why he was rewarded with this directing job or credit) but was pregnant which is why the role went to Joanne Dru instead.

Also liked the homage of the title sequence image.

Really need to read that Campbell bio properly.

Which book says Campbell may have been somewhat inspired by Lovecraft, since "At the Mountains of Madness" was serlalized in Astounding, even though in general he disliked Lovecraft.

jules verne wrote a novel called THE SPHINX OF THE ICEFIELDS (1897)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/%27The_Sphinx_of_the_Ice_Fields%27_by_George_Roux_69a.jpg

that uh “sphinx” looks like the melted nazi from raiders of the lost ark

bad vibes imo

old-timey pictures of the sphinx which are terrible

That Jules Verne is a sequel to Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym, which is maybe proto-Thing as well?

https://pulpcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/13_astounding_1936_02_brown-600x849.jpg

proof if proof be need be

How do people feel about THE FOG?

Basically love it, with the possible exception of when I'm actively watching it

Heh

It's playing at the FF on Thursday.

I was being a little flip ... the moments I genuinely love about The Fog are actually the moments where it feels like the plot is refusing to kick in, like it's really going to just coast on vibes like the best parts of Halloween did

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTI1MDM5NDUwOF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTc1MzkxMQ@@._V1_.jpg