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we're sure you'll enjoy the bonus content. Thanks for listening and enjoy the episode. Hello there to one and all, and welcome to Movie Haunts, a new segment from the Haunted UK podcast for Possessed TA members only. In Movie Haunts, I'll be reviewing movies and giving you my recommendations of whether you should give them a watch or give them a miss. But in the end it's you who make
the final decision. Being a paranormal podcast at heart, only movies which have a paranormal, supernatural or sci fi element to them will be up for review. But with that being said, this is a mini series which I want you, the listeners, to drive forwards. I want to hear from you with suggestions of movies which you'd like me to take a look at and then review. I'll then be putting up a poll on Patreon giving you the chance
to give the movie a rating of one to five stars. So, without further ado, let's see what movie we have up for review for this month. Released in nineteen eighty two, The Thing is a sci fi horror movie directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, T. K. Carter, David Glenn and Keith David, Richard Daisart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney,
Richard Masur, Donald Maffatt, Joel Pollis, and Thomas Waits. Carpenter had been on an amazing run of successful movies before The Thing came along, such as Assault on Precinct thirteen, Halloween, The Fog, and Escape from New York. But The Thing remains one of John Carpenter's most memorable pieces of work. It's actually based on the nineteen thirty eight book Who Goes There by John W. Campbell, and was first developed into a motion picture in nineteen fifty one's of The
Thing from Another World. The creature or protagonist in that movie was an actor in makeup and a suit, but John Carpenter wanted to go in a slightly different direction to this and instead have a number of different set piece creatures, and the one man who could bring The
Thing to life was special effects genius Rob Botein. At the time of production and filming of The Thing, Botin was only twenty three years old, and although he'd been under the mentorship of special effects legend Rick Baker for a number of years, it was his stunning werewolf transformation scene in the movie The Howling that really put him in the spotlight. He first worked with Carpenter our nineteen eighties horror The Fog and actually played one of the
dead sailors. Towards the end of the movie, Carpenter decided to bring him into the Thing to see if he could re imagine the creature and its various forms which Carpenter had envisioned. In the end, it was Carpenter who was asking Rob Botein if what he'd created was actually possible, and these feats you can actually see multiple times throughout
the whole movie. Such was the massive workload alone for the special effects that it called for Botein to work almost sixty full weeks straight, no breaks, and he was subsequently hospitalized after filming was completed due to chronic exhaustion. Kurt ross 's incredibly handsome beard is actually all his own work, and he began growing get a year before filming started. The movie was filmed on refrigerated sets in Los Angeles and on location in Alaska and British Columbia.
Now the budget for The Thing was initially agreed at around ten million dollars, but this overran by some five million dollars due to the extensive special effects work and set design costs, bringing the total to around fifteen million dollars. To save money, even further, and I don't know if you've noticed this, by the way, we've got Marie here now.
To save money even further, a number of scenes were cut, and it was decided that the movie be filmed in reverse, so the American camp scenes first, then the Norwegian camp scenes last, using the same set. The Thing was released on the twenty fifth of June nineteen eighty two to mix to negative reviews, with some describing it as quote instant junk, wretched, excess, cold and sterile, and best of all,
the quintessential moron movie of the eighties. It finished its theatrical run making just nineteen point nine million dollars, so it was a box office failure for Universal Pictures and a huge career low point for John Carpenter. In all fairness to Carpenter, I feel that it was Universal Pictures
that made the biggest mistake. They decided to release The Thing in the same month as smash hits such as Et the Extraterrestrial, which made three hundred and fifty nine million dollars, Star Trek two, The Ruff of Khn seventy eight million dollars, Poltergeist seventy six million dollars, Firefox forty six million dollars Blade Runner, and this was even considered an absolute flop, a commercial flop. Blade Runner was, and that still made twenty seven million dollars. Even the musical
Anni made fifty seven million dollars. Universal didn't really do their due diligence here when researching the upcoming studio releases, and it really didn't help the thing at all. But when it was released on VHS, it really found its audience, and over the last almost forty three years since its release, it's been reevaluated by critics who have unanimously applauded its story, script, acting, and its director, but above all, in my opinion, Robbotine's
truly amazing special effects work. It is now seen as one of the greatest sci fi horror movies ever made. So, Marie, you watched the Thing over the last few evenings, what do you think? Eh?
Yeah, I well, yeah, it's just just firstly, it took me three nights to watch it, okay, because I'm pathetic and fall asleep as soon as I commit to watch something. Lately, I've got thirty minutes watch a film. That's my wingspan. My husband Tom probably less, so it took three nights and a lot of drawl right kit fall asleep. But it did keep me awake, and I did really enjoy it. It did put me off my sausage castrole. You know.
I did make a sausage castrole the next day after the first part of my trilogy of viewing, and I fully expected it to sprout legs like a spider legs and just go for me. I'm not sure I can't eat a sausage casserole again. Actually, was this.
The first Is this the first time you'd actually watched the film?
Yeah? Yeah, okay, It's always been on my radar, and I don't know. I guess I always thought it was a bit of a boy's film, which I know is not a very good thing to say. You know, sort of boys in my life have been obsessed with it, and I guess that put me off because I don't like The Godfather. Ivery one loved The Godfather. I'm like, oh, that's a bit of a.
Boy I'm going to make a bit of a confession.
He obsessive. Yeah what, I'm not really a fan of the No No. I I was a little bit bored by it, but anyway, I wasn't with a thing. I absolutely loved it. And you know, apart from the sausage castle role thing, I just's so much I want to say about it. Okay, I just loved it. I loved the opening, and I loved the ending.
Okay, So the opening, we see at the very start of the film, a strange event happening with a helicopter chasing a By the way, before we do continue, there are going to be spoilers in this, So if you don't want to know any more about the movie or maybe some spoiler plots here and there, switch off. Yeah, but if you want to hear more about a sausage castle role spreading legs, then just carry on listening. So we see a strange thing with the helicopter chasing a husky dog, and I love that dog.
I was like, please, I was going to text you, so Steve, tell me something happens to that dog.
Doesn't die, A lots of things happen to that dog and all of the other dogs unfortunately.
Yeah, but I really liked how it almost felt like you were watching the end of another film at the start, because you're in the middle of the action straight away and got his beautiful husky dog running against his start backdrop of the snow, and you've got this helicopter ferociously hunting it down, and you realize this isn't the Christmas Chronicles.
But it's definitely He's definitely not Santa.
And I'm like, please don't kill that dog. But I sort of wish they did. Not No, I didn't want or not. You know, I love dogs, but but knowing what I know, now, yeah, and I thought the dog scene, which is sort of the first show piece but isn't it with the special effects, was absolutely brilliant and awful at the same time. And I've got my English teacher media teacher hat on here. I'm really sorry, but no, this.
Is fine, this is great.
The dogs sort of reminded me of the men. I thought there's a bit of a similarity because they're both impacts, and the men with that fairy Parker jackets a bit a bit dog like, aren't they a little bit feral and together? And I just thought it was really clever, how you sort of they sort of the dogs sort of foreshadow what's going to happen to the men, And I don't know, I just thought was interesting, you know, I felt like the dogs in a way were just like the men.
Yeah, would you like to have an interesting fact about the dog the star beautiful dogs.
I love them dogs consume by the thing.
Yeah, that that particular dog was half wolf.
Really, I like a real wolf.
It was half wolf. And Clark, the guy who you know the characters, wasn't it. Yeah, yeah, but he he bonded quite quite you know, quite closely to the dog. But what he said, the one scene that he said really terrified him was the bit where they where he puts the dog in the pen with the other dogs and he walks away and the dog just sits there, well, lies there, and he's just staring.
Straight and you know something's gonna happen.
And he said when they actually filmed that, the dog just didn't move. It was just staring. Yeah. It was creeping the film crew out while they were doing it because it just didn't move at all. It just didn't move. So, as you say, yeah, the first the first set piece kicks off, and it is in my opinion, I just think it's spectacular. I watched this, oh yeah, probably eighty four eighty five, around the time of Back to the Future, and I've always said that there are two movies that terrified.
One was American Werewolf in London. I watched it way too long. Now people will look at that again and just think it's it's this and that. I still don't think it's and.
No it's not.
I think there are a couple of there's an element in American Werewolf that frightens me. And what frightens me with the American Werewolf is that opening set of scenes. They don't do what normal people in horror movies go and do they accidentally stray off that road. They as soon as they start hearing noises. It's there is going to be some language in this, this, this, these these reviews. By the way, it's like ship David, what is that
they are? They are doing everything that you would normally do. Right, let's turn around to walk away and you know.
What, That's what the thing is like as well, because they do stuff that you would do.
Yeah, now, this is why the thing frightened me because of the special effects, especially because of that dog at the start. You know, when when I was that you, I'd never look at a dog in the same way. But what I found fascinating about it was it's something that could happen yeah, it is something that could easily happen. You have no idea what is under those layers and layers of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, you know, in the polar regions.
Isn't it.
Yeah, we've also got no idea of the lakes that are hidden underneath. And I think that you know, yeah, there have been you know, Russian scientists that have drilled down into some of these likes and the thing is you're you're drilling into something that's probably got millions and millions of years old bacteria in stuff that we have no idea how it's going to affect the human rights.
Never thought.
Yeah, these are the things that sent me completely paranoid with the thing. And that was the other thing that I loved about it. Yeah, the paranoia, Oh.
My god, absolutely, are you not? Well we'll talk about the ending in a minute, but you're not sure who is in the simulation.
Do you?
And yeah, what was it? So much of it that scared me? But I think what just similar to you is so the paranoia and that mimicry. Mimics scare me anyway, and doppelgangers, all that kind of thing. And also I guess the men were like things to the thing. You know, the thing didn't really care about didn't really care about Kurt Russell's beard or them as a person or individuals. You do, but I do, but the thing doesn't. It's
just a host. There were just hosts for it is a viral things fact, whatever it is, whatever the thing is, you just saw that as hosts. I didn't seem to human or people. And that scares me. I kind of think that's what aliens might be. Like, that's what scares me. They won't care about Obviously, they're not going to see us as people. They're going to see us it's just things as well, do you know what I mean? Like we just see us as not even food, just sort
of hosts. It's horrible. I don't know if I made sense at all there. I've just blabbered on, but.
It's perfect sense. One of the other. A few of the interesting things that Rob Boteine said when he was designing the creatures was he each creature was drastically different from the last one, and he said the reason for that was because when he read the script, he looked at the script and felt that the thing was a type of collector. Yeah, it had been all over the you know, all over the galaxy, through the universe, and collected these various samples of creatures and animals and simulated them.
Yeah, that's horrible.
And yeah, and it could be anything, you know, it could you never properly actually see what the real thing is, like you.
See that's right? What is it? I mean, what the hell is it? It's just horrible.
We will get to that towards the end.
Okay, I've got so many questions and okay, I mean, are you are you real, Steve? You're not in a similation, are you? It's yeah, reason but that was a scary thing about it is that you don't know who's who. You don't know who the thing is, not even at the end, which we'll talking about in the moment, because I absolutely when I first watched the ending, I was like,
what's that it? But on reflection, I thought it was bloody brilliant, absolutely brilliant, very brave because I had different endings, didn't they as well? They had was rescued and they tested his blood and it was all okay. But I I really love the ending because I don't know it all. It's like they just sort of realize that they're screwed and that's not what you expect at all. You know, they're just sort of that's just so much like life. There's not always a solution, is there.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and it's.
They were just like, oh bugger, but like me and you when the recording goes wrong or something of that kind of scenario. Yeah. I just thought that was that was really clever, really clever. Left it open and you're not sure if child if child's is.
Child's disappeared through that whole end process. Yeah, you know, I think you know, when they went down into the generator room, that was a great line. You know, MacCready the generator is gone. Well we'll have to summon to backup per or something. No, it's gone. The generator had just completely been ripped out of its hous You said.
Really interesting about VHS. Yes, did you went this from the video shop?
Yes? I did.
Is that how you first came across it, because obviously that's how it became popular, wasn't it? But there was I don't know. I mean, we were both of the same generation where we went to the video shop and it was a magical thing, wasn't it. You can discover new titles on your own terms. Yeah, and that's obviously what happened for a lot of people here. But I really missed going to the video shop.
Actually, I always used to like going to Blockbuster, to be honest.
Yeah, titles. Just miss those days. Just you know, kids today just have.
That at that excitement of sticking a videotape in a video video machine and.
Yeah, having to rewind it. But I guess, I mean it's it's a sort of film that benefits from a rewash as well, isn't it. Yes, so you can notice more stuff. But I suppose that's what I'm trying to imagine you in eight is you know, get it from the video shop. I'm probably watching it quite a few times, is that what?
Yeah? Yeah, I watched the I watched it the first time, and yeah, I was kind of terrified with it, but I was in absolute awe of it, you know, because of the special effects, but because I was quite I was just really interested in the acting as well. And I love the element of paranoia that gets injected through the entire crew, as you say, through all of it. They don't know if the person standing next to them
is real. And I think that's terrifying, especially in an environment where you've got no escape, you cannot get out.
Oh yeah, that's it. They're so isolated.
Yeah, I think that's a brilliant that is. They really hit on a trick when they when that, you know, when they set it out there. Yeah, because you know, they didn't need a big cast, so you kind of get to know them a bit more. I mean quite a few scenes were cut and left on the on the you know, the editing floor, which would have explained
a little bit more about the characters. But I think Universal just wanted it chopped down to a smaller run time, which you know, as John Carpenter would probably admit, most director's cuts are probably like thirteen hours, and that's how they would love it to be seen. But you can't. You can't really repeat it that many times a day if your film's thirteen hours long. But yeah, I loved
it for a lot of different reasons like that. And it was all around the same time, as I say American Well, and I'll tell you another one that came out around the same time, and that frightened me as well, and that was The Fly with Jeff Goldblum.
I've never seen the Fly.
We'll have to do the Fly because he gives a real tour de force. Jeff Goldblum does the amount of makeup and stuff that he had to go through to do that. But it was it's kind of messing with it's messing with nature or nature messing with you, and it's tragic, and that I kind of found a very very similar thing with the thing it was, especially when it gets to the end of It's tragic. You've got no idea what's going on, You've got no idea if one of them is actually the thing. It leaves it
just so open ended. And then it made me start thinking, but what if a helicopter rescue that rescue helicopter and that rescue mission the windows were constantly trying to get through to on the radio, trying to get a rescue mission organized. What if that actually turned up and fend them frozen to death? Yeah, and then took them back to a civilized you.
Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, equal, wouldn't it Yeah? Yeah? I mean at the end of the film, it felt like it was going to begin again as well, didn't you That they're found and then someone else has been the same scenario.
Yeah, but again I think it was the Box Office that killed it from from the making a sequel. I think there was there was a sequel being written to it. But the other thing that the other thing that frightened me as well was when you see Blair doing the calculations on the computer.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know they're kind of you know, worse.
Yeah, I really love a computers.
But it was you know, how it worked, how it got yeah, you know, captured the cells and replicated them. And then he asks the question, you know, projection about if it reached a populated area, was it twenty seven thousand hours? I think from first contact it would take over the entire world population. Yeah. That's just frightening.
It is very frightening. Yeah, Like I say, it frightened me because I think that's what aliens might actually be like, Yeah, it just wouldn't care. They're just devour you. And I'm not sure they'd be friendly. I'm not sure they'd be like et no, no, no, Which was it, Like you say, it's rival released the same week was it a week before?
I think it was. Yeah. I just think that's there was there was another one that that kind of got absolutely trounced. I can't remember what it was, but again, it was a really good film, but another studio I made the horrific mistake of releasing it when Jurassic Park came out, and we all know what happened when anything went near Jurassic Park. I mean it just yeah, the t Rexes just ate them all up. It was I
just don't think they did theirself any favor. And you know, John Carpenter kind of blamed himself and said that he took the rejection really bad. Yeah, when people critics were slate in it, and you know, people were leaving the cinema because it was too violent and too gory and things like that, he really did take it. He took it really really hard. But yeah, I'm glad that it did get that it did get re evaluated, because I just think it's an amazing movie. It really really stands
the test of time. Yes, you can tell that the effect aren't cgi it's all practical, Yeah, but.
I love that. I think it's more believable.
Yeah.
You know, when it gets his head ripped off and turns into a spider, it just looks real, so tangible and full of texture, and you know, it makes you feel sick. Yeah, I don't think cgi I can do that.
When it's bending down the table and you see all the green tendons like.
That detail, and like you say, it was sort of a dawn of a new era of special effects, wasn't it. They just like to you at that point. I don't know, I don't know much about special effects, but like rubber stuff, wasn't it.
Yeah, Well, there's a brilliant couple of little stories that they'd set up. One particular shot, I can't remember the scene that they actually set up, but robot teams spent absolutely ages making the dummy up for everything and the special effects stuff, and they had one take at it at that time, and they ended up something. Something caught fire. But the even Robbot team was saying the amount of plastic and stuff and things and chemicals that we were
just pouring into bits that made it look good. It just said we didn't realize all of it was flammable, and you know, the whole lot you know, goes off and starts burning the set down, but they managed to do that. Another really interesting bit was, you know, when Popper is trying to restart the heart of is it Norris, Yeah, Norris, and his chest opens and his arm's going and he pulls them. Yeah, this is brilliant how this was done.
So they got an amputy right in they Rubbotine had made a like a death mask of Copper's face, laid it over the actor to make it look like him, did all the eyebrows or the hair, everything, and they went when the scene where the thing closes around its arms and he pulls them off, that's the amputy obviously with no arms. Oh my god, I just then that absolutely amazing.
That is amazing.
Yeah, yeah, how do you do that? How do you think of that? Twenty three years old?
She's only twenty three.
He was only twenty three.
So what did he go on to do? I don't know much about him.
Rob Boutin did, Yeah, he did the howling, he did obviously the thing he went on and did total recall. Right, But it was again another film that after this that really shoved him on the map, and that was RoboCop. So he designed the entire of the RoboCop suit. He built it, and there was a great a great bid in that. I don't know. I don't know whether you've seen RoboCop.
Right, Okay, so probably the worst person.
No, right, So again we'll probably do RoboCop as well. But you need to be prepared for absolute ultra violence because it's a pul Verjova movie and it is incredibly violent, incredibly violent, and there's a scene in it where Murphy the police officer is shot to pieces and that you know, a guy blows his hand off and stuff like that, and Robotin did all of this and again there's an amazing I'm going to give a plug to him. Actually it's a I think it's Dead Mouse product Dead Mouse Productions.
I think I've posted something about it.
Yeah, yeah, there's.
For anyone interested who wants to know all about Robocopper and who's really interested in it, there's a I think it's a three or four part documentary that's on Amazon that he made and lit well all of the casts that are still surviving because it was made back in eighty nine or eighty eight, that they go through this huge interview and it is fascinating how it was done, Absolutely fascinating. And I found out from that chap that rob Botine he literally fell off the face of the planet.
I think it was roughly after Witches of Eastwig or something. He did a lot of stuff on the Witches of East Week and just disappeared. And apparently what it said had happened was there was an he'd done some sort of interview or something like that and got misquoted and just hated Hollywood for it. So he went into real estate and that's what he's been doing ever since.
Oh my god, he.
Came yea, he came out of retireation. Yeah, he came out of retirement I think in twenty fourteen to do some bits for Game of Thrones, But that that was it. Really a guy with all of that talent.
I guess it'd be in his I think he's sixty five.
I think he was born in fifty nine or fifty six or something like that. He's in his sixties. I think he's in his.
Six He is astonishing, So he's it's probably retired now, isn't he.
I don't know, I don't know. I mean he did say that he'd made he'd made more money in real estate than he ever made doing, you know, on special effects. But yeah, it's just a fascinating guy.
But did he do Gremlins? No, Kremlin's sort of merged into one with.
Similar Yeah, Gremlin's was brilliant. Again, I have to.
Do that, and it's sort of I don't know. I mean, how old were you when you watched the thing? Because I imagine it really did stay with you. You were too young?
Yeah, I mean I was born in seventy four, so I was I was probably about nine or ten. Yeah.
Yeah, so that's pretty young, isn't it.
Yeah, but it was around then with American were Wolf as well. Yeah.
It's the sort of thing you know, you sort of do talk about in the playground. I just remember the people saying about various films and kid growing up. I think the Thing was one of them. You know, head gets ripped off. Yeah, you can't believe it, but it does happen, and it's very believable.
I'll watch other ones. I mean, my mum used to say things like, oh, you want to watch a Clockwork Orange? Oh my god, it's terrible. Oh god, it's really And I've watched the Clockwork Orange and it's a good film. Yeah, but I sat there watching it thinking, God, the things so much better than this, or it's so much you know, more, more Gloria and more, and it's.
Got a lot too, it isn't It's such a shame that it got so slam you know, because there's so much to it. I mean, it's got a lot of plot holes and it hasn't it, but it you know, I can't work out go on if they if they if they know that they're the thing, the thing or not. But I don't know if that matters. I don't know, does it get their memory first or I don't know.
It's horrible to think about, isn't it. Maybe that was purposely left out for you.
Yeah, I quite like that though.
Yeah, I like that. And again I like the ambiguity of the ending.
Yeah, it's like I say, it's so brave, so ahead of its time to have an action here at the end say we're screwed.
Yeah, we're screwed.
We're not going to make this brilliant because that is life, Yeah it is.
It is.
Yeah, And it's just I just thought that, really that was brave, and you know it's just original.
One by one obviously this thing starts going through the camp folks.
Yeah, I can't remember the order.
Yeah, Kurt Russell's Kurt Russell's character is a guy called I. I Jae McCready, who he's a helicopter pilot, and you've obviously got other scientists there. You've got a guy who takes cares of the who takes care of the sled dogs and stuff like that. And the plot really revolves around the start of the movie where we'd spoke about seeing the husky, and they obviously find out that the pilot and the co pilot who was shooting at the dog
were Norwegian. They know that there's a Norwegian camp not far from the USA one, so they go in thet they get up in the helicopter and fly to the Norwegian camp, where they discover some quite horrific things. Yeah. They discover a well, they discover an axe in the wall. They discover a guy who's frozen to death in a seat, who's cut his own wrists and the blood is frozen as it's been dripping out of his wrists.
Yeah.
They also discover for a strange thing outside that looks like it's something that was in the middle of transforming into something and its faces melted, if you like. Into that's a brilliant effect that is, where you've got half of its jaw there and half down.
Yeah, the imagination of it all. Yeah, it's real stuff that wants you dream. It's sort of remind you of I guess insects, you know, I don't know, like the stream insects. And then it just taps into that horror of that. Yeah.
And they find this strange empty block of ice in the Norwegian camp. So they find all of these old videotapes, don't They take them back and they start to watch them and work out that they found something somewhere near their camp. They locate the place where they've been going out and mooching around in the ice, and the creedy goes up with screwing, I'm going up anywhere because it's like forby below adside all of this stuff, and they find we do we do the spoiler? Just do it?
Just do it? Yeah. So they find a UFO that has crash landed in the ice, and they estimate that the ice that it's been buried in is roughly around one hundred thousand years old.
It's nicely done, that though, isn't it that explanation?
Yeah, it's brilliantly done. Yeah, the backscatter effect he calls it. Yeah. Yeah, And they find the open cavity if you like, where the block of ice has been cut from, which is still in the Norwegian camp orbit empty. So it's then down to what have they found? What were they working on? Why was that block of ice there? What was in it? And mccred he's getting all of these questions. Is in it?
And he's like, I don't know. You know, one hundred thousand years ago, this thing crashes on Earth, it gets thrown out or crawls out. You know, they wake it up, probably not in the best of moods.
Yeah, Well, for quite a while I was it builds up to that, doesn't it, and like it a big ice cube. It was like just stare at an ice cube. Oh, it's not it. But obviously you realize it's yes, you.
Do, you do. And it continues to go through the movie and you continue to see these people being picked off one by one by this strange thing, and you know, you get the One of the best scenes is that scene in the wreck room where they try to develop a test.
Oh yeah, the blood testing.
The blood test. Yeah, someone gets to the blood because I think it's copper that says if they mix uncontaminated blood with contaminated blood, there should be a reaction. Well, yeah, obviously Copper gets killed, the blood gets to someone gets to the blood and drains the blood supply, so they haven't got that. So it's Kurt ross Or that thinks well after being shut outside, because again that's another great paranoid thing when I think Norse comes back with Macready's.
Can we talk about Norles for seconds? Because he's on roller skates and his sweatband and I just want to live my life like that.
I want to go to an arctics research station and roller skate round with.
A I want to get around that way from now on. I want to get a sweatband, roller skates and just be like, hey listen, Stevie Wonder. Yeah, okay, he was my favorite.
Do you know that? So they get into that scene, they get into that scene. I've got to say that you said, oh, he was my favorite. I'm just going to describe the worst scene that always makes I have to look away, And I don't know why. I just have to look away all the time every time I watch it.
The blood say or what about to know?
It's when he's like, you know, so that that they find those overall things don't they So they all think McCready's one of the things, so they locked the doors.
McCready's stuck out really explored, is it No, have I imagined or did?
No? No, it's it's never really explained. But it's again, it's one of those things that's left out there. There's an entire community of people online that go through how the thing went around, went through the people.
Yeah, yeah, but there's loads of conspiracies. But is cat Russell isn't an alien?
Is he?
Like he's I mean he's not an alien, but I.
Mean he's he still looks good for his age, so he could there.
Yeah, but like you know, is it a given that he's not.
I don't think he is after that blood test, Yeah, because you don't see him being attacked by anything after that.
No, that's true.
So they're all in the wreck Yeah. So they're all in the wreck room and you know, Kurt Russell's in their ice over his beard. He's freezing, he's got he's got like you know, he's trying to do that. You get his hands working again because he's been free you know, they've they locked him out. So he gets in and then says, right, we're going to we're going to do
a little test. We're going to see who's who someone and hearing who they say they are and all this kind of stuff, and they're all He ties them all down, doesn't He gets windows up with him, gives him a flying front.
There's that great line, isn't there about being tied to the safe for the rest of his life. You can probably do it better than me. Yeah, there's a fucking couch. That's the one.
It's the scalpel of it where they stick it in their thumb and cut.
Ah. Yeah, I didn't bother me and my woman. Blood doesn't.
Blood doesn't bother me. I can watch arms and legs. But he hacked off. But anybody does anything with eyeballs or you get a scalpel and they're giving did you see wind goes? How far he pushes that scalpel into it?
He does? It was a bit excessive.
It's like, what are you trying to do? Man? Cut your thought off. He's only asked for a bloody I'll tell you what. He'd be fine at Tharoanos with that Elizabeth Holmes, by giving her that much blood, you know, for the Yeah, thank god, she wouldn't be able to do anything else like that. But I love that saying absolutely love that scene where he's got it in that that that Petra dish and he said I said something.
He says something to Gary does and you're the only one I could have got to the blood will do you last? And he sticks the copper in.
And attention, attention. Yeah, it's spectacular.
He's up the corner trying to get the flame thrower working because it's it starts, you know, jamming and cocking up, whereas Windows is there just literally staring at this thing and he's, you know, torch it, torch it, get rid of it, and he ends up biting the dust.
But yeah, I don't saying I was a bit shot by was when mccreedy just shoots Clark. Yeah, but I know he thinks he's an alien, doesn't he he thinks he's the thing.
I think he thinks he's the thing. But I think he also.
Pretty an't it? It didn't really expect that makes you a murderer? Yeah, exactly because his blood's okay, and Clark.
Who's going to look after them dogs?
I know, I mean he did look a bit odd. He did seem a bit odd that you do think that he's Yeah, you do, you're told not you, but actually a bit of a red herring.
Ye her Actually when they find out that Blair has been gotten to somehow.
Yeah, so clever, isn't it. You just don't know who's who's who's who. But it's that again, it's that idea of mimics, you know, aside from demons, mimics. He scared me if we get story, you know, in about mimic or mimics or doppelgangers or I don't know. It just really frightens me that someone can just be someone else. Who are they? It's like, you don't scream.
Was who was?
Who was doing that? What was doing that?
Yeah? What? What kind of Yeah, it.
Really frightens me. Yeah, someone can just pretend to be someone you know, I love and trust and they're not gonna who you think they are. It's terrifying.
And then you know you're are you know you you go down stairs the morning after and ask that person, do you remember getting out of bed last night? No? Yeah, okay, right, okay, really strange, but it was very it was it's very it was very interested that when when when Kurt Russill turned around and said to Gary. When Gary said about
I can't remember who it was. You know, the guy that went out in his hands his fingers were really large, and he went out and he does that horrible scream and they poured them.
Oh my god, the scream. The execute him, really, don't they.
He's not he's not actually he's turning.
He's consumed, like, yeah, is he actually just And that's horrible.
Yeah, they have to execute him. They burn him.
It's horrible. So in that way it's quite there's not killing, yeah, you know, like cold blood killing. But yeah, also the sounds in that film, because even the thing sounds like it's in pain. It's horrible.
Yeah, he just listened to it.
It's horrible.
Yeah. And Kurt Lessol's great line when he throws the dynamite at it. Yeah, fuck you too.
It's a bit crap, col I like he could just I don't know. That made me laugh. Actually, you know, it's like a little kid or something. I'll fuck you know. It's just I thought it might just be a bit more of a lie. I don't know, it just it just made me maybe laugh a little bit.
Bay.
Yeah, yeah, that kind of sort of iconic line. But it just sort of reminds me of a kid riding on his bike.
Into ruined violusion.
It just it's funny but really endearing as well, because actually that is probably how anyone would respond.
Yeah, probably, So do you know about the new version of the thing?
No, I don't educate me, right, Okay, I can't remember what year it was made.
I'm thinking maybe twenty Let me have a quick look, because I do think it needs to be just quickly talked about and explored a little bit, okay, because at the time it was it was so exciting when this started to go into pre production. Where are we? So it was made in twenty eleven. And you know Mary Elizabeth Winstead, she's married to you and McGregor.
I guess yes, I'm going to look her up. She French, She is French.
Rather she she's in that movie. What's his name as well? Joel Oh blimey. I can't remember his second name. He's quite a quite a famous actor. He's in it as well. So what they decided when this, when this came out, well, when when it was going into pre production and you know, there was stirrings around of you know, there's another edition of the thing coming out again. I was thinking, Jesus, I just hope they don't ruin the original if they're going to remake it. Then it turned out, and then
it turned out they weren't going to remake it. What they were going to do, they were going to do a prequel, right, So then we're going to show you what happened in Norwegian camp.
Yeah, that's what they did. Is that what they mean?
And that's what they do. So it starts off with her. I think she's in America and she's obviously a scientist and as a report that something has been found in the ice in that location, and they want I can't remember what she does, but they want her. They want her to be part of this expedition. They've they've set up a camp up there. They're going to go up there and they're going to find out what this is. But it's been confirmed that it's not of this earth.
And she's like, right, okay, and you know yeah, and they go to they go to that location and they they really do lovingly completely reset up that set as best they possibly can. They got John Carpenter in, they got some of the set builders in that were still alive. From the original. They try to get blueprints to recreate it, but they've done a really good job of, you know, of what it looked like when you saw it burnt to cinders when they went up in the helicopter to
go and have a look. But it just you would need to watch it. You'd need to watch it because when that when yeah, when they made it, they said, it's you know, we're going to go back to practical effects. We're going to do this, We're going to do that, We're going to do yeah, and a lot of it was just CGI and it just it wasn't brilliant CGI.
No, no.
But what you can do is you could watch that twenty eleven one and that ends with the helicopter flying off into the distance, right.
So it's like the start of the thing.
Yeah. So when you said it's like the end of a movie at the start, it is exactly that.
It just feels like it's something that just keeps happling and happening.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And as the Norwegian one ends, the twenty eleven one ends and you see the helicopter, there's that dum dum.
I love the soundtrack. I love the soundtrack. I just I just love all those John Carpenter soundtracks, you know, Like, I mean, he did Halloween, didn't he? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, do you know what I did? Unia did Slasher Film Uni and yeah. We used to watch seventies early eighties horror on a on a Tuesday evening, I think it was, and then i'd walk so you know Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you know, yeah, and then I would just I'd walk home in the dark, and it just felt like I
was in a junk cut up into film. And yeah, I felt like the last Girl, Final Girl.
Yeah. If there was a bloody guy stood at the end of a street in a boiler suit with a something, do you know who the mask is actually in Halloween? No, it's William Shatner. No, yeah, the mask Meyers wears, Yeah, is William Shatner. And they obviously painted the mask, but it's a mask of William Shatner.
So it's a mask of William Shatner.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that Michael Meyers wears, you know, the mask that he that he's.
Got right, Okay, yeah, yeah.
It's William Shannon.
Fantastic fact.
So so people, if you're in a pub quiz and somebody comes out with it. What who was the mask modeled on that Michael Meyers wears in the Halloween movies. It's William Shanner. There you go, There you go. Yeah. Okay, So Marie, what did you like about the movie and would you recommend it?
Oh? Absolutely, Yeah. I liked it because it was quite It was quite relatable in a way because they kind of they weren't heroes because if it they're doing, it just wasn't working. You have the blood. Yes, that was quite genius, you know. It was they were kind of failing at trying to get rid of this thing, and that's quite relatable. But I just I love the ending. Yeah, because like I said, I thought it was a bit
rubbish at first, so that was that it. But I've been thinking about it for a couple of days now, and that to me is a sign of a brilliant film to make you think think, why do they do that?
Yeah?
Oh yeah, that's just going to go on. Yeah, life is a bit like that.
Yeah, I said it was very.
Brave, Yeah, very brave. So I think how it was structured, the opening and the ending, and how they the thing got each of them grabbed, you know, one by one, and just the structure of it.
It's brilliant.
Yeah, so thank you for making me.
Watch it, no problem at all, and you would obviously recommend it. Mark's out of five stars.
I'm going to give it five stars, Steve, because brilliant. Yeah, because I really did love it. I was thinking about it a lot, and there's just so much to it. And I don't know, I just I love sort of early eighties y vibes. And it's funny you said it came out the same time as Eating, so I have to always watch Eat at school when there was a rainy break or something. I wish i'd put the thing on. I don't know how that would have gone down there with.
Bottles of green jelly.
But I just yeah, down to the soundtrack, the sounds, the special effects. I wish we still live in that world, you know. I still wish they used it because it's so believable. It's so visceral and frightening, and like I said, it put me off my sausage casserole.
So it did its job.
It did its job. And one about you in a nutshell? Was it that you love about things? I know you've often talked to me about the thing and how it's your go to Yeah.
Yeah, I just think everything about it. I think I watched it at the right time, the wrong time, but the right time. Yeah, And it just captivated me completely and utterly captivated me. I loved the story. I loved I really related to the actors in it. As you said, I think what I really loved as well, as they were all flawed, that all of them were flawed and all of them were making terrible mistakes, especially as you pointed out when Kurt Rossill shoots Clark and they find
out after the blood test that he was human. Anyway, all of them have their flaws.
We're also human, and that is how humans are when they're in a secluded location. Yeah, falls together. None of them are particularly like it, but either really, apart from the guy in the roll.
Escapes, which is your new way of life.
Yeah, exactly, that is how humans are.
Yes, So we're going to do this again with another episode of Movie Haunts. But it's your turn to choose the movie that we have a watch of and review. So do you want to tell me now or are you going to have a think about it?
Oh, it's definitely going to be and this is good for listeners if you were to listener before The Possession of Emily Rose.
The Possession of Emily Rose.
Yeah, yeah, I think about that right that. I mean, I'll talk about it more in the episode obviously, but that is probably because of my Catholic routes. Okay, a little bit afraid of possession. And it actually stems from we used to have this priest because I went to a Catholic school. He'd come in when I was in that year eight, so I was about twelve or thirteen. He took us for our e lessons one term, but he didn't teach us ari. He just told us possession stories.
It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant, but it obviously wrecked me, terrified me. And I think this movie brought all that back. I went to the cinema to watch it when it came out. Was it about twenty years ago now, and you know, I just couldn't couldn't sleep all that week. It really it's a true story. It's a it's a well you know, I don't know she was really possessed, but yeah, it's based on a true story. And yeah, that's what I'd like to do. Yeah, if you're up for that.
I am definitely up for that. So we will get that on the cards. So it's going to be the.
The what the I don't know where are we? I don't know what?
Yeah, in March still, yeah, this is March. So this one's going to go out in April and then we will do the Emily Rose movie after that. Yeah, but yeah, we're going to We're going to get a Yeah, We're going to do quite a few of them actually. So if you've got any suggestions of movies that you'd like us to review and have a watch out, even if they yea, even if they are crap and if there on you know they're you know, they're in the you know, the the waste paper basket of Amazon and they've got
one and a half stars. You know, don't do it on purpose, but if you think that, you know what, it's a crap film. But it's good because it's crapes. Yeah, but please nothing with Johnny Depping. That's my only. That's just my only, or Tom Cruise I've got Actually, it's something that I'm just going to quickly there the listeners won't get this at all, but I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you on camera because I quite like I quite lake Luky Lakey's, you know, but really
bad Luky Lakey's. And my sister sent me this photo of a Luky Laky and this is Jane's nephew. This is Jane Jane's nephew in his eighties outfits. So this is for a fancy dress party. He thinks he's the spitting image of Tom Cruise. Her reaction, It's the best laugh I've had all week.
I don't need to.
Okay, that looks more like Tom Cruise. Okay, right here we go.
It's all black. Ah wow wow. If it makes him happy.
There you go, listeners. If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad as The Brilliant Show.
With William Shaw.
Yeah yeah, could they? Right? So, if you are going to watch this movie that we've reviewed, and you'd like to write a review of your own, then you can send it into the show and we'll probably read a bit of it out for you.
Yeah yeah.
Also rate the movie out of one to five stars, which I will put a poll up so you can give it a rating and we will rate it ourselves. I'm still the only person to rate the MEDUCA Touch. I don't think anybody's bothered with it. You know, it's nineteen seventy eight. It's quite terrible. But I quite like the Medusa Touch again. It's telekinesis, it's strange.
It's it's interesting. Definitely sorry, See what would you rate it out of five?
The thing five? Yeah, I just I love it. I absolutely love that movie. I really do love that movie. So the only stipulations for these movies are they have to be of a sci fi or a paranormal or supernatural. You know, Yeah, they have to be of that genre.
That's fair enough. It's haunted, is.
Right. So until next time, we'll bring this episode to a close. So have a lovely evening, Marie, and wish you all the best. Yes, So until the next time, stay and take care ye to see you soon, see you bye bye. Test some church trust to chustoms of ch