10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Thing

John Carpenter has to be one of the most underestimated directors alive. Maybe he’s not as underestimated as he once was but he’s definitely underappreciated. His work with Kurt Russell alone is crazy impressive and unlike many filmmakers he hasn’t really had any stinkers over his career.

The Thing is a unique film in that it isn’t your classic horror tale and it isn’t a full on science fiction movie. Like the alien itself, it is a hybrid of many different genres. It takes the physical form of the creature that it comes in contact with but retains the mentality of the organism. This film is an absolute classic and it stands out because it blends all of those amazing elements with some of the most creative creature designs in history. Stan Winston did a small amount of work on The Thing but it’s really the baby of Rob Bottin. He worked so hard at times that he was hospitalized from exhaustion. Time to take a chill pill Rob, and read these 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Thing…

1. The sets for the movie were built in British Columbia during the summer so there would be a good covering of snow for filming.

2. The original film had a monster in it that was much more reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster. The creature here is closer to the one in the original short story, “Who Goes There?”

3. When the characters fly to the Norwegian camp the pilot of the chopper let go of the controls and let Kurt Russell fly briefly. You can see the helicopter jerk a bit in the film.

4. The burned down Norwegian camp is the same camp that is destroyed at the end of the movie.

5. They were making this movie right around the time that the AIDS virus was being discovered. There was a real eerie connection between the creature and the disease, especially in the way they do the blood test to determine who is infected.

6. Of all the crazy scenes involving prosthetics, the scenes where they give shots or take blood from the actors made audiences the most squeamish.

7. Kurt Russell came up with the ending to the film. The studio wanted a happier ending where a helicopter showed up and rescued Russell but John Carpenter never considered it.

8. The effects were created by Rob Bottin, who was only 22 when he started work on the project.

9. The film’s final budget was $10 million. Halloween, which was also done by Carpenter, was released just a few years earlier with a budget of $375,000.

10. The dog at the beginning of the film is different than the one that is in the rest of the movie. The scenes in the camp were filmed with a dog actor named Jed. He also played the wolf in White Fang.