The Thing (2011) | Episode #82

In this episode, hosts Katherine Troyer and Toni Tresca continue things with their discussion of the 2011 horror film--and franchise prequel--The Thing. (Get it...continue things...with The Thing. Come for the bad puns, stay for more bad puns.)

Episode Highlights: We talk about our appreciation of the character Kate (and not only because she has an awesome name), and the ways that this character--as a female scientist--both offers something missing from the 1982 film and pays homage to the 1951 film's character of Nikki. We explore this film as a post-9/11 prequel and the ways that this film addresses a cultural need in the early 2000s for explicit answers rather than more ambiguous possibilities. And we question the purpose of the film's third act as we discuss how the film's focus on certain narrative elements shaped, for better and worse, the film's conclusion. 

A Dose of Scholarship: We invite you to check out the scholarship we discussed in this episode: James Kendrick's essay "The Terrible, Horrible Desire to Know: Post-9/11 Horror Remakes, Reboots, Sequels and Prequels" available in the 2017 edited collection American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11 (edited by Terence McSweeney). 

This podcast episode first aired on February 7, 2023.

A big shout out of appreciation for our fantastic editor: Jackson O'Brien.

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