Siskoid Cinema presents… No Escape from Kurt Russell, the show that explores the filmography of one of American cinema’s best leading men and tries to get a handle on his mystique. Why is it we’ll watch anything so long as Kurt Russell’s name is attached to the project? On this episode, Siskoid and Marty Léger discuss 1982’s The Thing. A 1950s sci-fi movie remake, Siskoid? I’m kidding, this is one of Kurt Russell’s most iconic films. Of COURSE, we’re covering it.
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Credits:
Bonus clips: “The Thing” by John Carpenter, starring Thomas G. Waites and Kurt Russell; and “Main Theme (from The Thing)” by Ennio Morricone.
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Great discussion gents. This was the first true horror film I ever saw. I was a little weinie tramuatized by the Wolf Man’s transformation in the first few minutes of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein at age 4 or so. Fast foward 5 or 6 years and my friends tell me about this cool sci-fi film they watched on HBO. We rent it, and my mind is blown and the horror Band-Aid completely ripped off! Despite everything I’ve seen since, the body horror in this film gives me a very visceral reaction every time.
I’ve been wanting to show this to my daughter, but I know the dog scenes are going to be hard for her to swallow. Maybe I’ll just bypass them?
Even though this was a flop, I think it was pretty quickly re-evaluated on cable and VHS, so I think it’s very important in establishing Russell’s action hero mystique. I can imagine most of the actors the studio talked to were put off by the hero not really winning in the end. Their loss is Russell’s gain.
Great discussion about a great movie. Some thoughts.
Like you, I think I saw this on tape, rented from a video store, when I was about 14-15, a couple of years after its cinematic release and immediately loved it. Amazing. As you say, the cast is crazy good, each playing their role well.
While the effects are what make the movie, the growing unease of who is and who isn’t a Thing becomes the real story. Since I have seen this movie a million times, I know who ultimately is shown to be a Thing and now the fun is trying to figure out when. For example, we know Palmer is a Thing in the couch scene. I always assume he was the first turned, the shadow we see in the room the dog walks in. But we don’t know. Was he still Palmer when he refused to go out with Windows? Or was that Thing Palmer stoking paranoia? And I always thought the noose in the shed was Brimley’s was of offing himself before he was taken.
The paranoia becomes so strong that characters contradict themselves. When McReady is cut loose, Childs doesn’t care if he’s human or not saying ‘then we are wrong’. When Clark turns out to be human, Childs calls McReady a murderer. Can’t have it both ways.
Anyways, one last funny Anj-specific story. About 20 yrs ago, I was at a team-building retreat with a bunch of doctors. They know me as a movie guy so I said ‘You know, running a code is always stressful and Hollywood never seems to get it right. Let me show you a scene from a movie where I think it is done well. This man has just collapsed …’
I then show the CPR scene of the Thing to a bunch of unsuspecting docs, none had seen the movie, and dropping right into the scene none had any context. A mix of blank faces and horror looked back at me.
I don’t know if everyone appreciated what I thought was a pretty funny prank.
There is a drive-in movie theater in PA I follow on social media called Shankweilers – and they had a double feature of The Thing and The Shining this past weekend … in the snow. It’s good to know some places still give us the option to watch some of these classic horror movies on the big screen.
Discounting Star Wars, I’ve listened to more hours of Thing podcasts than any other movie. It’s the questions and uncertainty about every-Thing that make it such a rich subject.
My interpretation of Thing control is that it’s a complete mental/physical takeover and that the Thing is always messing with non-Things. It wields the knowledge and physiology of its victims as weapons. “This dude is prone to a heart attack, I can use that to take out a few of these rubes at once” etc.
Loved this episode. Great conversation about a classic film that felt fresh.
The Thing is one of those films that my parents rented when I was a kid and I snuck out to watch and them immediately had nightmares about upside-down heads with spider legs for the next five years.
This film is great because, for me at least, it changes as I get older. At first, it was all about the spectacle. The gross stuff. The action. Then it became more of a psychological suspense thriller that could be an allegory for a lot of things. AIDS in the 80s or COVID at the peak of the pandemic.
The 1951 film was a source of my father’s favorite bit of trivia, “and you know who was The Thing in the original film…” we probably talked about lot about Gunsmoke back in the day I guess.
The 1982 Thing now reminds me of a take on my favorite Twilight Zone episode The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” all about fear, paranoia, and suspicion.
I’d have to imagine most 1950s & 1960s work like this had some connection to Mccarthyism.
Anyway, the main question here, “Is this a good Kurt Russell film” which I always analyze as, if you replace Russell does it still work, and I think so. Russell has this ability to play someone who you can’t trust. You don’t always look at him as a square-jawed hero, even if physically he has that look. There’s something muddy about him, (like in “Dark Blue”) that helps keep you on your toes in a film where you’re trying to figure out who is the creature and who isn’t. So I think hes one of only a few that could pull this off.
Thanks for covering the film.