[Long Haired Samson]

(10-21-2017 11:32 PM)Alsos Wrote:  

(10-21-2017 08:14 PM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  

(10-21-2017 07:08 PM)Arminius Wrote:  

It was in fact remade, in 2011.

The 2011 film is a prequel to the 1982 film. The 2011 film tells the story of what happened at the previous science station. The 1982 film is actually a remake of the 1951 film. The Thing is played by James Arness.

Both of which were adaptations of John Campbell's 1938 short story "Who Goes There?". Which in turn was arguably derived from Lovecraft's novel "At the Mountains of Madness". Which was inspired by the accounts of the Heroic Age Antarctic expeditions.

It's adaptations and derivatives all the way down!

(Campbell's story is a great read, by the way. As is Lovecraft's. As are the accounts of the Ant/Arctic explorers - some bad-ass dudes on those expeditions. Who needs movies?)

I've been wanting to read Campbell's novella for years. I need to find a copy somewhere.

As for derivatives The X-File had "A Thing" story line where Mulder and Scully are trapped in Alaska and an alien parasite is infesting people.

https://halloweenlove.com/that-time-the-...the-thing/

[Long Haired Samson]

So let me throw this question out there. Was the Thing a sentient intelligent life form?

[CynicalContrarian]

(10-21-2017 11:49 PM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  

The scene where the doctor is giving giving the alien infested guy CPR, then his chest opens up and bites the doctor's arms off freaked me out for years!

The stuntman for that scene was a double amputee apparently.

IMDB -

Quote:

For a scene where Dr. Copper's (Richard Dysart's) arms are severed, a real-life double amputee stand-in was used, wearing a mask in the likeness of Dysart. The audience focuses on the bloody stumps while the mask goes unnoticed.

[Alsos]

It's been a long time since I watched either movie, but in the book it's presented as a "perfect parasite" - it absorbs its host and takes his form, and absorbs his memories/knowledge as well. It replaces the host completely, while retaining knowledge of its actual identity and nature. The alien ship discovered under the ice was not built by the Thing, nor was the alien recovered from it the Thing itself: the parasite had replaced the crew, using their own biology to adapt to their environment and their own knowledge to operate their technology.

As for sentient, it's hard to say. The original material shows that its level of intelligence and ability to act on it depend directly on the nature and capabilities of the host. But everything that it does can be attributed to instincts mediated through the host. It's not clear whether the parasite itself has a will beyond its instinctual urge to reproduce.

The backstory and setup are surprisingly sophisticated for a 1938 short story - especially compared to the shallowness of the 1951 movie.

[Syberpunk]

Even if you're not a fan of the film, Kurt Russell and John Carpenter doing one of the best commentaries I've ever heard is a must. They're bros and so laid back/ordinary. Getting drunker by the minute and funnier, yet Carpenter is still able to give tonnes of detail on minute details.

[AnonymousBosch]

I was a big horror fan growing up, but I've never understood the hype for this one. I must have seen it six times in my life, but every time I watch it, it seemingly-evaporates from my head as soon as it finishes. I know it has big effects set pieces, but I can't tell you what they are, and I used to study special effects to figure out how things were done.

I saw 'The Burning' once over 30 years ago. It was terrible, but I can remember the Raft Massacre scene. I can remember the staking in 'Martin'; the drill through the head in 'The Gates Of Hell'; the whole business with the axe near the end of 'Tenebrae', (which I still remember including one of the best genuinely-earned framing jump scares I've ever seen); the zombie eating the shark in 'Zombi 2'; the bums playing keepaway with a dick in 'Street Trash'; and the brain-eating via blowjob in 'Brain Damage'.

Hell, I even remember 'So I Married A Vampire' - a film so obscure it's not not even on Wikipedia - where the dumbest lead character I've ever seen gets taken advantage of by a succession of obviously bad men due to her gullibility, ('They're just art pictures', 'My mother needs money for a kidney', 'They're only clove cigarettes' etc), then goes to view a room for rent, meets the pale brother and sister who own the palace, who then tell her to mind the broken mirror in the hallway, which results in her suddenly developing a preternatural level of understanding when she's been functionally-retarded for the rest of the film.

I even remember what she said. (The jaw-dropping awful brilliance of which is best understood if you visualise someone prodding her with a stick off camera before she delivers it like she's reading Today's Specials).

"Broken mirrors? Blood tranfusions? These guys must be vampires. I'd better get out of here!"

But 'The Thing?' I've got nothing besides two guys sitting in the snow, and I watched it with a mate last year, when he chose it, being on a Carpenter kick.

Look, I even remember this, which makes me laugh, not because I remember 'The Thing', but I damn well remember 'Pingu':

Weird hey?

-----

I have this theory Horror works best when the setup is familiar enough to the audience to imagine it happening to them and get to imagine what they'd do in the same situation. I think it needs an entry point for the audience to see how easily the familiar could slip into horror, and it has to play on situations they'd imagined being thrown into.

I mentioned this when I discussed 'It' recently: every town has schoolyard legends of a place where something bad happened, which is where you get films like 'The Haunting' or 'The Legend of Hell House', but where the horror movies of the late 60's and on worked best was they dropped all the gothic and historical trappings and, in doing so, let the audience feel just how unsafe they really are.

'Night of the Living Dead' starts off with a trip to pay respects at a Cemetery and spirals out of control from there. 'Dawn of the Dead' has people barricading themselves in a shopping mall, because everyone has imagined what it would like to be in a mall after hours with full access to the stores.

'Carrie' is the fear of unpopularity and social exclusion. 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' is fear of the mob. 'The Stepford Wives' is the fear of marriage removing your identity. 'The Exorcist', 'The Omen' and 'Rosemary's Baby' all tap into religious fears. 'Cujo' is that dog that has always been friendly suddenly growling and barking at you.

'The Hitcher' is that fear of the stranger in your car turning out to be a maniac. 'The Terminator' and 'The Day After' are the fear of nuclear war and our powerlessness under governments. (I watched the latter sometime in the last two years with a friend, both of us expecting to laugh at a piece of 80's camp, and we both were stonefaced by the end of it).

'The Shining' is the fear of the Patriarch becoming abusive. 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' relies on the audience knowing just how hard it is to stay awake after a nightmare. 'When A Stranger Calls' and 'Halloween' is that feeling you get when you wonder if there's an intruder in the house.

'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'Deliverance', 'Psycho', '2000 Maniacs', 'Deranged' and 'Children of the Corn' is city people driving through the country and thinking "How could anyone live here?" David Cronenberg and the Japanese understand how things can go very wrong with the human body.

The (original European) 'The Vanishing' is very subtle, but I think most people can understand how far would you go for closure and how you know you should look away, but just have to see.

Fear of aging. Fear of technology. Fear of the generation gap. See my logic?

Now 'The Thing' should obvious tap into the same territory as 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', (the '77 version even brilliantly-tapped into the Uncanny Valley)...



...but seems similar in tone to 'Day of the Dead': an isolated group of people in a situation very unfamiliar to most viewers grow increasingly-paranoid and divided against each other.

A research station in Antarctica or the underground base in 'Dead' are both functionally a Haunted Castle in Transylvania. It's Old Horror. Given the early 80's timing of the films release, I would have had a town community forced to group together in a shelter, (community hall, hospital, school gymnasium) either due to a massive blizzard, or, unknown to the community, the government understanding there's a real possibility of a nuclear war.

I would have gone much darker than Carpenter, but it would have started from a place that anyone could see themselves in.

I'd like to hear any theories explaining the movie in human terms to me. Pretend I'm Zuckerberg. It didn't register as a Work Crew in trouble film to me the way 'Alien' does. Show me a way in. I've never found Carpenter interesting in a faux-artistic way, where I could admire his composition and lighting, (Romero, Argento). He's meat-and-potatoes.

----

That reminds me: I remember watching a very, very dark film sometime in the late 80's. The hero has a meet cute with a girl in a diner and it plays out like a romantic comedy, until he answers the ringing payphone in the place. It's a wrong number from a military base of a soldier trying to get through to his family. The hero is told its 70 minutes until the nukes hit, and the rest plays out in real time.

I'd love to watch it again, but can't remember the title. Does it sound familiar to anyone? I remember it capturing the nervous, edgy, adrenaline high of understanding that things are so badly-fucked they can never be unfucked. It's why I always loved 'Return of the Living Dead'.

[sterling_archer]

Miracle Mile from 1988.

[ed pluribus unum]

(10-22-2017 06:18 AM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

That reminds me: I remember watching a very, very dark film sometime in the late 80's. The hero has a meet cute with a girl in a diner and it plays out like a romantic comedy, until he answers the ringing payphone in the place. It's a wrong number from a military base of a soldier trying to get through to his family. The hero is told its 70 minutes until the nukes hit, and the rest plays out in real time.

I'd love to watch it again, but can't remember the title. Does it sound familiar to anyone? I remember it capturing the nervous, edgy, adrenaline high of understanding that things are so badly-fucked they can never be unfucked. It's why I always loved 'Return of the Living Dead'.

"Miracle Mile".

I've always been a big fan of Tangerine Dream, and way back when (1990?) found a discounted cassette tape of their OST for a movie called "Miracle Mile." Never heard of it , but hey - cheap TD music. I guessed it was probably about a runner or something.

About a year later, walking through the mess lounge on base, past the TV which was on but with nobody watching, I thought to myself, 'wait, I recognize that music' and sure enough. It was about halfway through the film but I figured out what was going on and was gutted by the end. Further darkened by being long distance from gf at the time, having recently completed some NBCW training etc.

Certainly fits your bill of "ordinary people, ordinary situations, spiralling out of control."

[MajorStyles]

(10-21-2017 08:52 PM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  

That's a great analogy. The scene where Reese gets the drop on the Terminator in the dance club with his sawed-off shotgun is an iconic scene. By the way I had thing for Sarah Conner back in the day. Hahaha.

The original Terminator was so awesome...but then they gave Linda Hamilton a cock in the sequel. Sad! She was so wonderfully feminine in the original, seeking the guidance of her patriarchal protector in Kyle Reese. Even though Reese's "I traveled back in time to get laid" shtick was pretty beta, the movie was still great.

Terminator 2 set the table for all future, action films: Million-dollar CGI, accompanied by a masculine heroine with zero maternal instinct. That shit destroyed our culture. Since then, I've seen a million Linda Hamiltons: i.e. a cold single mother that does kickboxing on the weekends. And social media came along just in time for these trollops...they were able to get 100 likes from their fat frenemies by "checking in" at a jujitsu class or a UFC training facility.

On the bright side, their inability to pair bond has been a continual source of entertainment.

[TigerMandingo]

(10-22-2017 10:37 AM)MajorStyles Wrote:  

Terminator 2 set the table for all future, action films: Million-dollar CGI, accompanied by a masculine heroine with zero maternal instinct. That shit destroyed our culture. Since then, I've seen a million Linda Hamiltons: i.e. a cold single mother that does kickboxing on the weekends. And social media came along just in time for these trollops...they were able to get 100 likes from their fat frenemies by "checking in" at a jujitsu class or a UFC training facility.

Perhaps, but Terminator 2 is probably the greatest sequel of all time. The CGI wasn't over the top, the action scenes were masterfully executed, and the villain was a great casting. It is possibly the only movie where the female heroine is not only tolerable but you also cheer for her. I didn't mind Linda Hamilton one bit.

If you wanna say T2 was an inspiration to future action films, that may be, but the people making modern films haven't taken the right lessons from it. The stories and the acting are far FAR weaker than they were in T2.

[TigerMandingo]

(10-22-2017 10:37 AM)MajorStyles Wrote:  

Terminator 2 set the table for all future, action films: Million-dollar CGI, accompanied by a masculine heroine with zero maternal instinct. That shit destroyed our culture. Since then, I've seen a million Linda Hamiltons: i.e. a cold single mother that does kickboxing on the weekends. And social media came along just in time for these trollops...they were able to get 100 likes from their fat frenemies by "checking in" at a jujitsu class or a UFC training facility.

Perhaps, but Terminator 2 is probably the greatest sequel of all time. The CGI wasn't over the top, the action scenes were masterfully executed, and the villain was a great casting. It is possibly the only movie where the female heroine is not only tolerable but you also cheer for her. I didn't mind Linda Hamilton one bit.

Whenever I re-watch it, I'm amazed by how well it aged. It doesn't look corny at all for a movie made in 1990! The T1000 movements and his liquid nitrogen forms looked freaking great. Fast forward 10 years and you have the Lord of the Rings movies, where every single scene was shot in front of a green screen and looks more fake than Kim K's ass. If you wanna say T2 was an inspiration to future action films, that may be, but the people making modern films haven't taken the right lessons from it. The stories and the acting are far FAR weaker than they were in T2.

[MajorStyles]

(10-22-2017 11:48 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

(10-22-2017 10:37 AM)MajorStyles Wrote:  

Terminator 2 set the table for all future, action films: Million-dollar CGI, accompanied by a masculine heroine with zero maternal instinct. That shit destroyed our culture. Since then, I've seen a million Linda Hamiltons: i.e. a cold single mother that does kickboxing on the weekends. And social media came along just in time for these trollops...they were able to get 100 likes from their fat frenemies by "checking in" at a jujitsu class or a UFC training facility.

Perhaps, but Terminator 2 is probably the greatest sequel of all time. The CGI wasn't over the top, the action scenes were masterfully executed, and the villain was a great casting. It is possibly the only movie where the female heroine is not only tolerable but you also cheer for her. I didn't mind Linda Hamilton one bit.

If you wanna say T2 was an inspiration to future action films, that may be, but the people making modern films haven't taken the right lessons from it. The stories and the acting are far FAR weaker than they were in T2.

Tiger, I can't split hairs with you on the action scenes of Terminator 2...they were masterfully done. I agree with you there. But I do prefer the acting in the original, so we will have to agree to disagree on that one.

On a related point...note how we NEVER see the original Terminator in syndication. We only see Terminator 2 or, for the love of God, Terminator 3. Is there a more obvious example of the feminist takeover of a franchise than Terminator 3? Their plan is so obvious - find a successful red-pill movie and then poz it with androgynous subplots. And it all starts when we accept a "strong" female character like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. You cannot give them even one inch, Tiger...once they have their subversive subplots in a film, then it's the beginning of the end for a franchise. And moreover, the infection of a generation of women via subversive virtue signalling.

[TigerMandingo]

That's a good point. I'm curious to what extent James Cameron is a globalist/feminist/cuck etc. Avatar was a great film, but it had that obvious multikulti kumbaya garbage message, so I see what you're saying.

Regardless, I can separate his skills as a director from his views. It's kinda like John Lennon. Yea he was a weak pussy but he made some great music.

[MajorStyles]

(10-22-2017 12:47 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  

That's a good point. I'm curious to what extent James Cameron is a globalist/feminist/cuck etc. Avatar was a great film, but it had that obvious multikulti kumbaya garbage message, so I see what you're saying.

Regardless, I can separate his skills as a director from his views. It's kinda like John Lennon. Yea he was a weak pussy but he made some great music.

Judging from his work, he is a cuck of the highest order. Note the basic male/female dynamics of Avatar. A handicapped Marine (i.e. a red-pilled man made weak) is emasculated the entire film. First, it comes from an older ball-busting shrew in Sigoruney Weaver that resembles every fifty-year old HR manager in corporate America. She constantly reminds him of what a pathetic loser he is...because you know, she paid her dues in the glass ceilings of Avatar land. That face...one that could kill a hard-on at fifty yards.

Speaking of The Thing:



And then there is the blue chick he falls in love with. Another scowling shrew that - if you removed the makeup - would look like an angry feminist with resting bitch face.
One line sticks out to me, in particular. He jokingly says, after she is tutoring him on how to be a successful dude in Avator land: "In her language she calls me dummy." I am paraphrasing, but that's the general gist. The audience chuckles because, you know, humiliating a cripple is good fun.

Remember that we, as men, see the metaphors of these films. But most women are incapable of that, and they only see what pertains to them: i.e. a bitter woman emascualting an Alpha male (they'll get their revenge on Tinder douche bags, one way or another).

[AnonymousBosch]

(10-22-2017 07:24 AM)ed pluribus unum Wrote:  

"Miracle Mile".

I've always been a big fan of Tangerine Dream, and way back when (1990?) found a discounted cassette tape of their OST for a movie called "Miracle Mile." Never heard of it , but hey - cheap TD music. I guessed it was probably about a runner or something.

About a year later, walking through the mess lounge on base, past the TV which was on but with nobody watching, I thought to myself, 'wait, I recognize that music' and sure enough. It was about halfway through the film but I figured out what was going on and was gutted by the end. Further darkened by being long distance from gf at the time, having recently completed some NBCW training etc.

Certainly fits your bill of "ordinary people, ordinary situations, spiralling out of control."

Thanks for that, guys. Going from a child to teen during the 80's, nuclear fears really resonate with me. The trailer looks like it mightn't hold up, but those fears run deep, so who knows...

Funnily enough, Ed Pluribus Unum , I ripped the Miracle Mile CD a few weeks back when I was digitizing my (1200+) CD collection to FLAC format). I could see it came after 1988's 'Optical Race' - which has a running stick figure on the cover and may be the source of your association - but it had no stills from the movie at all inside the cover, so I didn't make the mental connection.

TD's 'Near Dark' is on vinyl. I'm going to have to set about digitizing my record collection at some stage, but given that I've got more records than CD's, life's probably too short.

----

I thought more on 'The Thing' and why it doesn't stay with me. From what I can see the Human Fears are probably these, (beyond simply dying):

Fear of Extreme Isolation
Fear of Not Being Able to Survive If Alone
Fear of Trusting Others
Fear of Unspoken Motivations
Fear of Group Conflict
Fear of The Unknown Other

Then top it off with Body Horror.

Knowing that:

- I'm an Introvert who performs as an Extrovert in Social Situations, so prefer the peace of Quiet Isolation, particularly as I age. (My Zombie Apocalypse Scenario would be to avoid large groups).

- I've been tested enough to know you can only really rely on yourself. Sure, if I'm alone, I might die, but, hell, I also might die crossing the road. This is why I can happily walk away from relationships with women where the negatives outweigh the positives, something that drives them nuts.

- Human motivations and trusting them: I'm not naive and always mentally-search for the unspoken 'why' behind any kind of attempted behavioural manipulation. It's another reason why I frustrate women so much.

- I expect people in groups to disagree and fight, particularly when emotions run high. We're all humanly-flawed and fall victim to our internal desires during social communication.

- The Unknown Other? It's hard for me to suspend my disbelief in Aliens. They function better as social metaphors, as in the obvious one in 'Body Snatchers'; or 'The Stuff' being about consumerism and government indifference to what is put into our food; or the satire of drug addiction in 'Brain Damage'; or an alien believing he must be Christ in 'God Told Me To' playing off Christian Beliefs.

That really only leaves body horror: I used to catalogue Crime Scene Photos; I've cleaned up accident scenes; helped burn victims and I've watched love ones go through cancer. Clean up enough piss, shit and blood and you become desensitized to it.

As such, I can see 'The Thing' is just not my thing, and can't psychologically resonate with me.

----

I've spoken about this in relation to Game, where the ability to tell a good ghost story to women relies on them understanding it is something that could happen to them. 'The Thing' won't get you laid. 'Halloween' might.

[Long Haired Samson]

A short summary of the creature in The Thing.

[Mage]

My opinion about the thing is twofold:

The alien is overpowered. Realistically an organism with such abilities would have assimilated all life on planet and there is nothing that could be done about it. The thing could just sneeze in ventilation system and assimilate everybody, because contact with one cell of thing is theoretically enough to overtake and assimilate any multi cellar organism. Antarctica would be no hindrance to it as it would assimilate animals in ocean and all planet trough them. Thank God such organism is completely impossible scientifically. And OP monsters are boring.

Despite this the movie is great. The actors, the location, the pacing and the reveal, the ending - everything is great. It's a good movie from the age when Holywood actually made decent movies.


However I don't wish to see more movies about the Thing. I think that an excellent movie about this overpowered alien can be made only once. The prequel was bad and every other attempt to make a movie about this will turn out to be bad.

[Tactician]

Yo, this is off topic as hell, but I was laughing my ass off at the 'Thingu' video AB posted.

I poked around the creator's channel and laughed my ass off at this video also:

[Long Haired Samson]

Another longer video about The Thing.

[LeoneVolpe]

One thing I really love about "The Thing" is how well the special effects have aged for the most part. Nowadays movie makers would use CGI on everything, which in my opinion really takes away from a movie.

Practical effects > CGI

[ed pluribus unum]

(10-23-2017 07:26 PM)LeoneVolpe Wrote:  

One thing I really love about "The Thing" is how well the special effects have aged for the most part. Nowadays movie makers would use CGI on everything, which in my opinion really takes away from a movie.

Practical effects > CGI

Yes. Whenever I go off on this subject (right after my "you kids get off my lawn" bit) "Alien" and "Predator" are always my Exhibit A and Exhibit B of how quality physical effects make the movie 'real' in a way that CGI can not.