The Thing: What The Creature In John Carpenter’s Movie Almost Looked Like – Screen Rant

Original designs by concept artist Mike Ploog show that the titular parasite monster in The Thing could have been even more grossly terrifying.

The titular shape-shifting parasite in John Carpenter'sThe Thing is one of the most elaborate monsters in horror movie history, but it could have been even more complex. The 1982 movie is the most famous and most faithfuladaptation ofJohn W. Campbell's 1938 sci-fi horror novellaWho Goes There?,managing to have the same level of influence on body horror and science fictionmovies that thenovella had onliterature.Having written and directed the horror thrillerThe Fog and the sci-fi classicEscape From New York, director John Carpenter collaborated for a third time withKurt Russell, casting him as R.J. MacReady, a helicopter pilot who gets stranded witha team of researchers in aremotestation in Antarctica when an alienbeing starts murderingthemand assimilating theirphysicalfeatures.

The Thing is best known for its eerieopen ending are Childs (Keith David) or MacReady the Thing? as well as itsstriking visuals, and Ennio Morricone's suspenseful score. More importantly, the element that hasplaced The Thing in thehorror hall of fame is therealism of its ever-changing monster. Back in 1982, most effectshad to bepractical. This meant that the crew had to manufacture lots ofpuppets and animatronic robots. Not only did they have to be terrifyingly realistic, but they also had to be functional. Some of them crawled like crabs and others crept like worms, but all of them had to move in a logical manner. Although the creatures could be easily replicated in today's era with CGI and green screens, they wouldn't achievetheauthenticityof Carpenter's classic.

Related:The Thing: What Happened To MacReady & Childs

The success of The Thing'sanimatronic creations was highly fruitful, as thealien monster has inspired a slew of otherfilms such asSlither,The Faculty,andCloverfield. BesidesThe Thing's iconic "spider-head", one of the most memorable forms the monster takes in the movie is that of the "Blair-Thing", a gross amalgamation of the biologist Blair(Wilford Brimley) and the station commander M.T. Garry (Donald Moffat). This final form is considerably bigger than the rest. It has a pair of huge jaws attached to the side of Blair's head, one extra arm, multiple tentacles instead of legs, and a protruding "Dog-Thing" coming out of its chest. As much as thecreaturehas become one of thescariest horror movie monsters,storyboard artist Mike Ploog had conceived a far scarier version of the grotesque concoction.Ploog's depiction of the monster had the superior half of Garry's body riding a spider-like version of Blair, who hadnumerous tentacles coming out of his inflated stomach and, presumably, his rear end.

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The Thing: What The Creature In John Carpenter's Movie Almost Looked Like - Screen Rant

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero