The Big Picture - John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ at 40, With John Carpenter!

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

This year marks the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter’s sci-fi horror masterpiece, one of the signature cult classics in American cinema. Sean and Chris Ryan break down everything they love about the movie (1:00) before Carpenter joins the show to discuss how he made the film, and why it resonates to this day (55:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: John Carpenter and Chris Ryan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There it is. I'm Charles Holmes with The Ringer Music Show. And I'm Cole Kushner from Dissect. And Charles and I are teaming up to create Last Song Standing,

a new show where we determine an artist's single best song by debating our way through their entire catalog. And for our first season, we're covering Kendrick Lamar. We're talking Good Kid to Pimple Butterfly,

Dan, Mr. Morale, the mixtapes, the Lucys, and the features. Listen to Last Song Standing on the Dissect podcast feed only on Spotify. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the thing. Last month marked the 40th anniversary of John Carpenter's sci-fi horror masterpiece,

a film that has endured and grown over the past four decades into one of the signature cult classics in American movies. It has been reconsidered, reanalyzed, and ultimately hailed as a chilling and unexpiring vision of terror. It's a gory, disquieting, expertly constructed piece of work and one of my favorite movies ever. So it was quite a thrill to talk to Carpenter on the show today. He is a genuine hero of mine and a real no-bullshit customer.

Our conversation holds true to that form. But before we welcome Carpenter, I want to set the table for this movie by talking to someone who might love the thing even more than me. It's Chris Ryan. CR, hello. Hello, Sean. Thank you again for having me open up for one of the great directors of all time. I feel like this is one of my favorite bits that you do,

where it's like, Claire Denis, but first CR on horror from this year. Well, I think you're a solid opening act. You are the Jerry Lee Lewis to Carpenter's Elvis Presley today. And obviously I had to speak with you. This is a movie we've talked about a lot over the years, but we've never potted about. No. And we've never earned our keep by discussing this movie on mic. What do you think of when you think of The Thing? I think of a perfect movie. And I think of a movie that gets more and more perfect, if that's possible.

I guess perfection is the arrival of somewhere. But it grows in my estimation as the years go on for a number of reasons. Partially because of maybe the quality of movies like this now uh and some of the mistakes that they make that the thing kind of i wish they would have learned certain lessons from the thing which we can talk about and i think also because of the sort of four quadrant depth of the movie the way it sounds the way it looks the way it feels the way it was written,

you know, like everything about it. You can kind of let your eye wander when you're watching the thing. You can get into different aspects of it. You can just listen to the Morricone soundtrack. You can just notice all the funny little character tics that aren't belabored, but are really, really awesome. It's a great ensemble movie, obviously. And sometimes you can just kick back and watch Kurt Russell with a sombrero and sunglasses be a badass, which is one of my favorite things to do with these movies. Yeah. Let's set the table for it a little bit by just describing what this movie is. If you're listening to this episode and you haven't seen the thing, I would say just check it out. Just fire up iTunes. Perhaps rent this film. I think it's currently available via amc on amazon

prime like if you have an amc subscription or anything like that yeah this is john carpenter's eighth movie it's not his eighth feature film he did make a couple of tv movies but this is you can see him fully realizing his powers and it's his first movie that is neither a tv movie nor an independent production it's a studio movie made with neither a TV movie nor an independent production. It's a studio movie made with Universal Pictures. And you can tell, you can tell that he's having some fun. There are a lot of big set pieces. It is a small ensemble cast, but it is a location movie. It's set in Antarctica. It's based on a short story called Who Goes There? And it's also very much inspired slash something of a remake of a movie called The Thing from Another World, which was directed by Christian Nyby and produced by Howard Hawks, who is Carpenter's hero, the person that he cites most

often when he talks about why he loves movies. And the movie is doing a lot. I mentioned that it's science fiction and horror, but it's also a kind of, and then there were none, Agatha Christie style, you know, whodunit. It is a, it is sort of a science film in a way. It is sort of a ghost story in a way. It's a magically written movie by Bill Lancaster, who previous to this was best known for writing the Bad News Bears. This is Burt Lancaster's son. Yeah. And didn't write a whole hell of a lot of movies. Passed away when he was like 47, right? Yeah. And so he has two all-time classics on his resume. Why do you think this this what is so well written about this script why is this such a great script for carpenter to direct yeah well i think the thing

is that it's it's all steak and no sizzle there are no um distractions from this movie there are no deviations from this movie it is entirely about the scenario and when they say action is character i think that this is the movie that i would teach if I was teaching a class on that. Because all the characters are defined by how they react to this extraordinary situation. So you don't need to get a scene. We're going to talk a lot about Kurt Russell. Kurt Russell is nominally the star of this movie, although it is an ensemble. If any other director, any other filmmaker, especially today was making the thing, there would be, Kurt Russell would have like a wife he wanted to get back to. He would have pictures of his kids up in his bunk. He would have some kind of like origin story that was

driving him towards why he was handling the situation the way he was. But in the thing, it's just like you learn about Mac because of the way he reacts to The Thing, not because of anything exterior to the story. And sometimes you can make a movie like that and it can feel a little bit claustrophobic or a little bit shallow. But instead, this winds up being one of the deeper sci-fi thrillers you'll ever see because it's just about how the fuck

would you react if you were stuck in the middle of nowhere with this shape-shifting demon yeah i mean that is you've just summed up the story i mean the movie effectively opens with total confusion there is a dog racing across the snow-bound ground of Antarctica, and it is being chased by a helicopter. And for a solid three minutes, after we get this kind of very brief opening in which a flying saucer hits Earth at a certain time, we don't know when, it could be thousands of years ago. Kind of one of the undisputed great setups for a movie

is when a flying saucer hits Earth. Yeah, and that seems like a big homage to the 50s monster movies that Carpenter loved so much. Predator did that. That's right. Nice job, guys. After that saucer crashes,

cut 2,000, 10,000, 100,000 years later, we don't really know. We see this dog being chased by a helicopter and they're shooting at the dog. And I remember the first time seeing this movie is probably in high school. I was baffled as to what was going on because I thought this was going to be a monster movie

and not some sort of like sled dogs adventure film. And that's sort of what it sets up as. The Adventures of Natty Gan. You didn't sign up for that? I did not. And then ultimately we learned, of course, that these are Norwegians that are flying the helicopter and they have arrived at this base camp where these Americans are doing some kind of work. helicopter and they have arrived at this base camp

where these Americans are doing some kind of work. What work are they doing at this base camp? Doesn't matter. This is one of my favorite things. Are these guys even that good? Is this like

last chance saloon for scientists? Is it for like the washouts or is it like the best and the brightest? They don't seem to be like, I mean, one of the things

that's so great about it is that it's just stated in the beginning that they've lost contact with civilization essentially because winter is beginning, but they also seem to have like a bunch of burnouts doing certain jobs there. So it's unclear as to whether this is like the minor leagues of scientific exploration of the Antarctic or if this is just circumstances. But I love how kind of like you're never quite sure

who these guys are and why they're there. Yeah, it's interesting too because Carpenter is, of course, hugely inspired by the Hawks Westerns. He talked about how Assault on Precinct 13, which is sort of his first feature film, is just Rio Bravo.

In some ways, this is kind of Rio Bravo too. You know, men kind of stuck in a saloon shootout for two hours. And he loves this approach he loves guy tough talking guys who are awaiting a big bad and in this case the big bad is this alien creature that as you said can shift its shape to become like any living organism and so it arrives in the form of a dog and then eventually it starts overtaking these 12 men and twisting them into these gruesome figures. It's a truly disgusting movie. And I say that with a lot

of love and admiration. I think even to this day, you know, I rewatched the movie three times this week to prepare for this conversation. And even on my third rewatch, there's a sequence early in the film where the dog in question sort of is placed into a kennel with a bunch of other dogs and this first transformation begins to happen yeah and it is when it sprays them all with like it's your juices yeah and the sort of the tentacles are are wiggling around and it's this film is renowned for its extraordinary uh practical creature effects by rob bottine and even the third time watching it, I kind of winced and felt like I had to look away.

And I know that it's fake and it looks kind of fake. It almost looks like when you're on an amusement park ride and there is a creature that has been built and it's so real that you can touch it, but it's so fake that you almost have to laugh at it. And there, it is this really uncanny space between what makes movies so special, the way that they can kind of scrape at the insides of your body, but also that you can be completely safe in knowing that nothing is going to harm you. And that's what I always think

of when I think of this movie. Like it really, really, it fucks with me. It's very chilling to me. And yet it is ridiculous. You know, it's almost hard to explain in this format how this movie is so effective. But it's such a genius decision by Carpenter because I think that the movie mentioned the Hawks film and his classic Westerns. But the movie that this most reminds me of is Alien, where it's like working class people doing a job. And then the apple cart gets upset by something inexplicable. And unlike Alien, and unlike Jaws, and unlike pretty much any horror movie that you could think of where the whole idea is to build tension

by hiding the threat, Carpenter just shows it in under fluorescent lights. You just get to see, oh, this is what's going to happen to these guys. And that's what's so great is Wilford Brimley plays a character named Blair that we're going to talk to these guys and that's what's so great is wilford brimley plays a character named blair that we're going to talk about a lot i'm sure

but he's just like they do an autopsy of of the sort of mangled remains of of these norwegian scientists that mac brings back from their camp and you're just like this is it this is the end point and that's in and of itself more terrifying than if you were just like, there's something lurking in the hallway and guys keep disappearing. It's like, no, these guys are confronted with what's going to happen to them in the first 20 minutes.

And that's why it dictates their behavior going forward. You know, with Carpenter, this move feels like a distinct reaction to the kinds of films he had made before this, especially Halloween, which is the movie that he really made his bones on, was a massive sensation and was famed for not necessarily showing all of the gory details. deliberate the film is very menacing but it is not this hardcore slasher fest and it's often lumped in with movies like nightmare on elm street and friday the 13th but it's a very very different bit of business and even escape from new york which is a movie that preceded this is not necessarily um it's certainly not a gore fest it's much more of a classical like sci-fi action movie and even the fog which is the other horror movie that precedes this,

is a ghost story. He was not a horror meister in that way. He wasn't a slasher guy. And so to have him go all the way in the other direction, as you say, and make things so grotesque and so brutal

and so inspired by 16th century painters in a way, it's operating in a completely different way than any other horror movie of its time was. It's a Hieronymus Bosch paintings come to life. Very much. It's kind of an amazing choice. And it also, it requires more from the performances.

Kurt Russell plays this helicopter pilot and there's a series of great character actors and theater actors in this movie to make this ensemble. And as you say, we don't know a whole hell of a lot about them. We kind of sort of know their jobs, but you need to be paying close attention to even understand what people's jobs are. We have no idea what their motivations are as people. The fact that we don't know very much about them is part of what makes this movie such an elegant mystery, because we don't know if someone is not acting like themselves. We don't really know anything about them. And so if they

have been overtaken by the thing, we can only guess. But Kurt Russell, by this point, had become the John Wayne to Carpenter's Hawks or Carpenter's John Ford at this point, and hugely inspired by John Wayne in some of his performances for Carpenter. And this is one of his best. You know, it's not necessarily like his most verbal performance. He doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of lines,

but he has the perfect look and perfect attitude for this. You love Kurt Russell. What do you think of him? I mean, this is kind of like wedged in between, I guess, both chronologically. When did Escape from New York's what? 80? 81, yeah.

81. So this thing comes after, and then Big Trouble in Little China comes after the Thing. And that's the one that's kind of like the more wisecracking, wearing different costumes to break into buildings and using his wits all the time and always making these great jokes. So you kind of get the spectrum of the carpenter hero in those three performances. And honestly, probably Big Trouble in Little China.

Jack in that movie is my favorite Russell, but McCready is great because we're snake is this kind of like unkillable super soldier. McCready. I probably just like an ex military guy. Who's just like kind of like wound up here and drinks, drinks scotch and thinks about stuff, but like is kind of keeps to himself.

Like he's, he's not like an archetype really, except as the movie goes on, he sort of assumes this role of like the nominal hero of the story. But yeah, I mean, it's hard to really like put into words what Kurt Russell does because he just made a kind of like heavy metal version

of this 1950s cool, you know, I guess, or like, there was like a eighties modernization of like a classic 1950s cool guy. Yes. I think that's perfectly put. And it's probably notable that he has been acting since he was a teenager. And as a child star, what bore witness to the fifties and sixties screen legends and is sort of

riffing almost on their presence and, and still riffing on their presence in Tarantino movies. I mean, he basically remade this in Hateful Eight. That's right. And he's just remarkable in this movie. As you said, he looks so cool despite dressing like kind of a goober at times. You know, like it's hard to look cool in

Antarctica, you know, with all of the coats and the layers. You're also a layer god. You must appreciate what he's up to here. I definitely took some notes this time around. I don't know if I could get away with bomber jacket and sombrero, but coats and the layers you're you're also a layer god you must appreciate i am i mean i i definitely took some notes this time around i don't know if i could get away with bomber jacket and sombrero but it's definitely a look what about the rest of the cast you mentioned brimley this is um this is right up there with the firm for me in terms of peak brimley this is an incredible performance by him it's it's what he, like 30 in this movie?

He looks like he's about 78. But yeah, he's in his 40s, I think, in this film. And he plays this doctor who sort of loses his mind because he puts together the pieces of the puzzle. He realizes very quickly. He's sort of the exposition machine. And he realizes very quickly what the thing is and what it is doing. And he has a meltdown in this scene that is, I think, up there among the great meltdowns. It's up there with Peter Finch in Network.

There are very few moments in movies where they can match Wilford Brimley swinging an axe around and smashing the comms in an Antarctica base station. Do you have a brimley in you for this for this podcast well my favorite brimley moment in this movie is when he's performing the the noises he makes when he performs the autopsy on the alien he's like oh oh it's just like that smell he's got his hands like all the way in it's like whatever he's like oh oh no i especially enjoy the the odd line readings when he's losing his mind and he's like it wants to be us yeah but then the best part is when i guess like he's taken over by this point but he's in the shed in the outside shed he's like hey, I want to come inside now. I'm cold out here.

I'm okay now. I'm okay. I can come inside now. Really, he's wonderful. A lot of the other actors, Keith David, I think, is probably the most recognizable among the rest of the cast. And he would go on to work again with Carpenter very memorably in They Live. Hopefully, we'll do a They Live 40th anniversary podcast in a few years um i guess richard dysert and and donald moffett are also probably very

familiar to big movie fans that guys in this a lot of that guys um anything else about the cast what else do you think about the performances um i kind of love that you don't really know you know usually in a in a militaristic action movie ensemble like everybody's uh specialties are really up front it's like this is the explosives guy and this is the computer nerd and this is the guy who loves to speak different languages you know but this is like i you know windows i guess is the communications guy but like in the first scene he's like i haven't been able to get anybody on the phone for weeks and uh there you know, there's, Nalls is the cook, I guess. Gary is in charge.

But one of the cool things about this movie is nobody is ever like, well, Gary's boss. We got to do it, Gary. As soon as the thing shows up, like the hierarchy of this group breaks down, which makes it kind of awesome. Because then you just start noticing Palmer and Childs. Do they like each other at all? Do they hate each other? I just wanted to reference

in the screenplay, the Lancaster screenplay, the first page is just descriptions of the characters. And I love how basically Carpenter took this as gospel. He was like, yep, that's it. So it goes,

McCready, 35, helicopter pilot, likes chess, hates the cold, the pay is good. Gary, the station manager, stiff, ex-army officer, wears a handgun. Blair, 50, senior biologist, edgy, inquisitive, overworked. That's it. Those are all the adjectives you need for these people. Also, these guys are perfectly cast into those roles. That's the other thing that's it. Those are all the adjectives you need for these people. Also, these guys are perfectly cast into those roles. That's the other thing that's amazing. Like this script came before this casting. And you think about, you know, the description of Child's here.

That is Keith David. It's perfect. So by means of talking about how this movie kind of continues to resonate and things that we love about it, I thought we should talk about how it was received. And it is really unusual the way it has grown over the years because it flopped at the box office it was released in late june of 1982 it was actually released on the same day as blade runner and it was released just three weeks before i was born which i think is notable um blade runner one of your favorite films of all time ridley one of your favorite

filmmakers of all time it's mind-blowing to imagine a day like this in which both of these films came out. And yet, both were mostly ignored, praised by a handful of people, but not huge box office successes. And they were released just about a month after E.T. Whoops. And E.T. just took over. It took over 1982. It took over movies. Steven Spielberg officially claimed the crown of the chosen prince of this generation of filmmakers, and so it blew the doors off of these deeply pessimistic,

dark, genre-focused movies. Yes. That heartwarming, heartful, gorgeously made movie. We talked about it on the rewatchables recently i love the idea of these other movies though closely following and probably having just a lot more to say about life how we see the world the era that we were in and the future doesn't expire exactly yeah um it's so interesting especially the reading the reviews the contemporaneous reviews of the film i am fascinated by by Vincent Canvey's review of this movie in the New York Times.

This is how he opened the review. The Thing is a foolish, depressing, overproduced movie that mixes horror with science fiction to make something that is fun as neither one thing or the other. Sometimes it looks as if it aspired to be the quintessential moron movie of the 80s. Now, look, it's hard to review movies as they come out. It's hard to predict where the culture is going. We do it all the time on this show. We get things wrong. We change our opinion. This is a pretty weird takedown of the movie. And Vincent Camby was not alone. Many of the biggest critics in America were not a fan of this movie because it was so gruesome it was so intense it felt so off key i think with where the culture

was what the 1980s would be would be about and yet with hindsight we know that it was right on time you know that it had it had all the right things to say about it. Can you think of another example of a movie that was panned and flopped and then became so important, so influential, so quintessential to the idea of a certain genre of movie? No, because, I mean, here's what happens, I think, is that you get the critical panning of it. Carpenter's career is essentially dotted with... I think the thing about Carpenter is he's making these popcorn movies. I mean, he's making A plus B movies. There's no reason why these movies shouldn't be immediately successful aside from your stomach

turning at the alien or whatever. But for whatever reason, they flop or fail to meet expectations when they first come out. But especially during this time period with people renting kind of the same 11 movies and watching them over and over and over again, and the illicit charge you can get from watching something like The Thing and being like, this is creepy. This is my movie. And then what happens? Those people become filmmakers and they become Quentin Tarantino and they become Adam Wingard and they become all these filmmakers. And then all of a sudden,

the thing is seen as this totemic, you know, foundational text of modern genre filmmaking. It's a really interesting thing. I really can't think of very many examples. Carpenter has said that if this movie was a success, and I think it might have been if

it had just been released six months later in the year. Imagine going to this movie on a hot, sweaty day in Los Angeles. But if it had been a success, his career would have been totally different. And I asked him about this and he didn't really want to engage in the sliding doors aspect of it. But it is a really interesting sliding doors question because Carpenter, for the most part, even when he was working for studios, retained a kind of independent bent on the films that he made. If you look at what came after this movie, you mentioned Big Trouble in Little China, Starman, certainly In the Mouth of Madness and Prince of Darkness, the other two movies in his Apocalypse trilogy, They Live live these are very recognizable movies to

carpenter they're not studio jobs they are not him attempting to grow into a new family-friendly zone or make movies for little children or you never really feel like he's taking a paycheck which is something i always admire about him he makes makes his movies. Yeah, but he's not Terrence Malick. These movies, it's like he is almost screwed because he's not so artistically self-indulgent that he would be considered a museum piece,

but he's not crowd-pleasing in the traditional sense of the Spielberg Zemeckis sense of the word that you can consider him an amazing blockbuster director. All the discussions about the way the thing ends and the way that they

worked through the script is always really interesting to me because by all accounts, I guess Lancaster had a much darker and slightly more I think Carpenter described as glib ending, which was essentially that it's obvious that the thing is going to get back to civilization. And Carpenter wanted to keep it more ambiguous. He wanted to keep it more like, who knows, do these two guys

freeze to death? Is it Childs? Is it Mac? Is somebody going to come save them? Is there anything, you know, is that thing just going to be buried again or is it going to somehow live on? And that's a really brave choice. It's the right choice. It makes watching the end of the movie every time that much more interesting because you're watching this interaction between these two characters. Rather than overselling one idea over the other or making it a crowd-pleasing ending is sort of what damns him to praise from people like us, but never necessarily having the career that maybe somebody like him should have.

I don't know what that quite looks like, though. I often wonder about that because I love the way you put it. A plus B movies is absolutely what he specializes in. But what was the ceiling? I mean, he made Halloween. It's the biggest horror franchise ever. And maybe it's probably more the issue of people like you and I lying to one another

and being like, vampires should have been a huge movie, I guess. Is there an example of something like vampires that is a huge movie, though? No, I just think we see our taste in him and we know that also it has been informed by him. Yeah. And so he's such an unusual figure because he's in many ways a classicist. You know, like the way that he talks about movies

is he is a total, I went three times a week to the, you know, to the matinee and I was just obsessed with movies in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And I watched everything and I processed all of those stories and I made them my own with my 50s, 60s, and 70s. And I watched everything and I processed all of those stories. And I made them my own with my own twisted, you know, bent on them. I think at times he was tortured by his identity as a genre master.

And then he realized as he got longer and longer into his life and career that it was something to embrace. That like being the master of horror is actually, I mean, nobody is the master of anything in movies. And the fact that he owns that and claims that now is very, very cool. But I don't know. I don't know what else he could have accomplished. You know, the idea of him taking on bigger productions, I don't think necessarily would have equated more greatness. If you look at like Memoirs of an Invisible Man, for example, it's a very expensive movie with a big movie star that, you know, he got to take a big swing. It's probably the least

loved of all of his movies, even though there is some interesting things in it. So in a way, I'm kind of relieved. I'm kind of relieved he made They Live. Yeah. I'm kind of relieved he made In the Mouth of Madness. I am too. And I mean, I like even his like straight up failures, like Ghosts of Mars, you know, I mean, like most of his movies, almost all of his movies have something in there for me to enjoy. I always think about raiders with him because it's like uh to use like the the cellular language of of the thing it's kind of like where it splits it's really interesting to watch raiders because like there's elements of raiders that i think are very john carpentry you know i mean not necessarily being stolen from him

but you can tell that these guys like the same kind of movies and like the same kind of movie stars and thought a lot about story in the same way. But there are certain elements that Spielberg adds onto there that maybe feel a little bit more mass crowd pleasing, you know? And then I wonder what, so I wonder what Carpenter's version of Raiders would be. I'm sure it would be a lot more people's faces melting off and creepy runs through caves with poison arrows and stuff shooting out, and maybe a little bit less Marion, a little bit less Solly. I don't know. I mean, what is the thing that makes Spielberg so palatable to so many people and Carpenter a cult thing? I'll tell you what I think it is. I think it's the threat of innocence and the sense of uplift.

Those are the things that I think that Spielberg has his arms around in a big way that Carpenter does not because Carpenter is inherently pessimistic. He is inherently dubious of human nature. And Spielberg, I don't know what he really feels in his heart of hearts, but in his movies, he's posse. Yeah. He's a happy man who's done it all. And even in Jaws, which is like the most

doom-laden movie of all time, at the end, we're like, oh, Brody! Yeah. You did it, brother! And Richard Dreyfuss survived! It's okay!

And you don't, I mean, at the end of the thing, you're like, wow, I guess we're all doomed. There's no other way to feel. And I think that is actually part of the reason why the movie persists, right? Like in the 80s,

Shining City on a Hill, Reagan's America, things seemed to be going well. And yet, you know, under the surface that there's a lot of discontent, that there's a lot of angst, that there's a lot of frustration, that there are a lot of people who are being ignored or abused in our culture.

And I don't know that Carpenter necessarily specifically politicizes his movies in that way, but he knows enough to know that they're easily read that way. And one of the more interesting versions of that, I think, is that this movie is now this unintentional AIDS-era artifact, because there's a very famous blood test sequence in the movie. And the sort of paranoia about passing the disease at that time was strong. Now, they didn't really know that when they were making the movie. It's not an intentional move.

But when you tell stories this way, when you tell stories with this sense of paranoia, they can be interpreted in many different ways. I think it's just an amazing thing about many, many of his movies. They live, of course, as like the number one example of something like this. Yeah. I mean, to your point also about the Reagan era, I think that there's some suggestion or carpenters speculated before that part of the reason why the thing didn't do well was because there was a recession going on and people didn't want to see a bummer movie at a time when their lives were bummers. And this is like one of the most interesting things about whether or not movies should be a reflection of the times or an antidote of the times. Do people want to see things that look like the world outside of the movie theater or do they want to be taken away?

You know, and it's always been like a really interesting idea about like Hurt Locker versus Titanic. Like, you know, like, do you do? How do you want to feel when you go to the movies and what's your tolerance level for reality? Well, how do you want to feel when you go to the movies and what's your tolerance level for reality? Well, how do you want to feel? What do you think about that? It's a mix. That's why I love the movies

is I get to choose. You know, and I find that happening a lot with TV now today where, you know, if I watch some traumatizing hour-long drama, like I need to watch

Mr. Mayor afterwards to like kind of come down a little bit. Yeah, yeah. It's's funny though I feel like there's something profound about Blade Runner and the thing arriving on the same day and

ultimately meaning more to movies I think than E.T. meant I think E.T. stands alone as as a signature commercial and emotional achievement from a guy who is constantly telling the story of broken childhoods.

But I feel like Ridley and John Carpenter, people think they can emulate more closely. I know that those guys are obviously wildly successful filmmakers in different ways, but it kind of reminds me of E.T. is

the Beatles or the Stones, and then Blade Runner and The Thing are the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. And the people, if you love those movies, you almost dedicate your life to movies. Everybody who heard the Velvet Underground started a band. But anybody can like the Beatles,

and anybody can like E.T., and it Beatles and like anybody can like E.T. And it's just like, I love E.T. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they want to be a part of cinema or like study movies like us. You know, that's a great way of framing it. And in the same way, if you try to deconstruct Spielberg movies,

technically, they're like the Beatles. It's like, okay, this is actually kind of simple. Like this is not that complicated. And yet you lack that ineffable thing that Spielberg or John Lennon or Paul McCartney have. Yeah. Cause it's like, cool. If you, if you think that this Paul McCartney, I don't, I'm a John guy, but if you think Paul McCartney songs are so simple and easy, then write one. Exactly. Yeah. Whereas John Carpenter, like I think about this movie and one of the most discussed aspects of it, I think rightfully so, is that work

that Rob Bottin does, right? That all of these creature constructions, he's 22 years old in Alaska making this movie and he's staying up 22 hours a day

and he's building all of this stuff by hand and he's making sure that the way that it's all constructed needs to be like moved properly.

It's kind of puppeteering. It's kind of ceramics. It's kind of ceramics it's kind of this sculpture it's a it's an art form no question but it is physical you know my god can you can you imagine the dump i mean i guess they they remade it but like the cgi version of when bennings it comes out it's like still the scariest moment in the movie to me but when they they like surround bennings outside and his hands are the tentacles and then he lets out that scream and kurt russell dumps all the kerosene on him and it's like imagine how they would fuck that up if they made that now but like i mean they did remake this movie though that's the thing they remade it in a cgi era and they tried hard but it seemed to have

none of the visual acuity and also none of the sort of like intellectual intent you know like it was just a remake to make money it was just a scary movie and this movie has both things right it has all this big idea stuff that you can read into about paranoia and living amongst people we don't trust and also it just looks fucking cool like you described kurt russell as metal like the metal version of a 50s movie icon this is the metal version of a horror movie it is the most extreme fast scary loud on fire thing that we have and it's because like these weird nerds stayed up all night building this stuff yeah and i i think there's a little bit of complexity in the practical effects versus

computer generated effects conversation i don't i think there's a little bit of complexity in the practical effects versus computer-generated effects conversation. I think there's nuance there. There's a lot of computer-generated effects in Jurassic Park, and it looks amazing. But this is sort of the totemic example that people point to when they say, we need to go back to a world in which everything feels real and you can touch it, even if it doesn't look as clean and smooth. Yeah, I think also it's worth mentioning that they shot in Alaska

and that they tried to make it feel as real as possible. And he shot Halloween in Los Angeles and was able to make it feel like the fall in the Midwest or wherever it's supposed to be set. I think Ohio. Ohio. There's lots of things you can do, but one thing I will say about the thing

is that it really doesn't feel like they shot it in Vancouver or on a soundstage. It really does feel like these guys are cold. These guys haven't had haircuts. These guys haven't had any interesting conversations with anybody but each other for months. There's a sense of isolation and alienation in this movie that I don't know that you can just manufacture by dipping in and

out of one of the states that gives you tax credits. It's just a different time of making movies in a different way. One thing I observed to Carpenter that he seemed very keen to talk about was that this is the rare Carpenter movie in which he's not doing a few of the things that he's very well known for doing. For example, writing the script. He did not write this movie at all. He has a co-writing credit

on almost every movie he made, but not this one. He also did not do the score of this movie. This movie was scored by, as you mentioned earlier, the great Ennio Morricone. And it's a magical thing. It's like Ennio Morricone trying And it's a magical thing. It's like Ennio Morricone

trying to do a John Carpenter score. The story about them meeting is just incredible. So, you know, Morricone is obviously like one of the great cinema composers in movie history.

Carpenter approaches him and I think Morricone's like, I get asked a lot, like, what's up? And Carpenter's like, I got married to your music. He was like, okay, well, come show me the movie. And basically, Morricone did all these pieces of music for Carpenter to choose from, and Carpenter chose the one that sounds most like Carpenter's music.

It's so incredible. I think it's so great that he did that. It does make you wonder why. He said that people, when I asked him about this, he said that the studio just did not want him to do the music.

Nobody asked him to do this music, which I find so interesting. It does come at this really unusual period where Morricone is working very often for Hollywood. You know, like this is

the era of the Untouchables. It's the era of the Mission. It's the era of a lot of... It's sort of like his third act as a composer. But this one is a rare horror movie. He did not make a lot of horror movie scores. And he's just so perfect in the pocket.

If you listen to this episode, you heard the score right at the beginning of this conversation. I guess the other thing to talk about here is individual moments small thing small things we liked there are some great lines of dialogue there are some great set pieces we've talked about a couple of them already what's the most memorable for you you mentioned Benning's and his tentacle fingers outside is that the that's the scariest moment I think that's the

that and the spark test or the my two favorite kind so I, I now I've gotten to the part where it's more stuff like the shit that Palmer talks about is really like, I really enjoy it. Like where he's like, chair to the gods, man. Like I really, really dig him.

Uh, but the spark test is such a great, pure cinematic sequence. It's so good. I still have to this day when they do it, great, pure cinematic sequence. It's so good. I still, to this day, when they do it, I forget it's Palmer. So I'm waiting for it to be this guy and waiting for it to be that guy.

And then, of course, the reaction they have when Palmer starts changing is just unbelievable. Because these guys are tied to this dude, literally tied to the guy who is transforming into the thing because his blood's been sparked on fire and they can't get their flamethrowers to start.

So meanwhile, Gary and Child are like, get this guy the fuck off of me! That sequence, which goes completely haywire and then the thing transforms and starts attacking windows and things go nutty. Then at the very end of it after they've already

torched these two other members they still haven't done Gary's test and then that leads to Donald Moffat's my favorite line reading in the whole movie which is I know you gentlemen have been through a lot but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter tied to this fucking couch

I know you gentlemen have been through a lot and when you find the time i'd rather not spend the rest of this winter tied to this fucking couch and if you're a fan of um is it clear and present danger of patriot games i can't remember which one he plays the president in but um it's the same thing when he's chatting with Harrison Ford at the end of the movie and he's like you'll not bargain me like some junkyard dog Donald Moffat yelling is is that's a form of acting I really appreciate and admire um I love that scene the blood test scene's probably the most famous you see when a man bleeds it's just tissue my blood from one of you things won't obey when it's attacked

other than norris's heart attack slash defibrillation yeah which is i guess it's probably the most gruesome scene it is the most it definitely is elaborate an alien bursts out of his chest catavity and then goes up into the ceiling right yeah yes and then also norris's head breaks off and then grows arachnid legs of its own and attempts to crawl away which leads to the other greatest line reading in the movie which is palmer who says just total deadpan as he sees a head with spider legs crawling away you gotta be fucking kidding you gotta be fucking kidding you gotta be fucking kidding which is kind of how you would react if you saw something like that you

know if your colleague if if you and i were potting and my chest opened and my chest cavity was made of alien teeth and And then a transmogrified alien version of my head sprung forth and leaped into the ceiling. And then my head ripped off and fell to the ground. And we were still recording.

You know what I would say? What would you say? It's great content. And I would say, Bobby, did you get that on video? Can we do a breakout? Can we get that on social? Somebody tell David.

Is this why they keep asking us for tiktoks i honestly i pray to god we're mid recording when the alien invasion happens i pray to god because i want it i want it captured for the world to see i want my authentic reaction i go why don't we try like a we're the world's type thing where we pretend it is happening and And all of a sudden, I'm like, Sean, do you hear that? Is that happening in your neighborhood? And we pretend the alien invasion is happening. I think you could sell it. I think you could sell it. Just two guys podcasting into the end of the world. Is this our first film? Yeah. Should we get Carpenter to direct it do you think he would he think he

think we were like kurt russell material he he to his credit he wants money so i don't think he is interested in working with us because we don't have much of a budget to share for him um what are some other scenes that you love in the movie um can i just say keith david is that a scene i want to say like when uh when they come running into keith david's room i think it's actually the first time we really meet him and they're like Max says bring the flamethrower and he's like Max says what it's really great I think this is Keith David's first movie yeah and uh he apparently like broke his hand like the day before shooting started so for the first half of the movie you just don't see his left hand um but he was he's awesome in this

and it went on to obviously have an incredible career um gosh what else i mean let's talk about the dogs uh really one of the creepier aspects of this is just how like for 25 minutes you're like these dogs are nice and cool and you don't really think about the fact that why were these norwegians trying to throw grenades at it and then yeah things there's things move quickly for the dogs well there's that remarkable shot early in the film after the dog has come into the base where it's walking down the hallway yeah tracking shot yeah we see we follow the dog and there's sort of a pov shot where it almost seems like we're following the thing in a way, and then it zeroes in on the dog. And then we see the dog arrive at a doorway, and in the doorway, we see a shadow of a figure of a man. But we don't know who the man is.

We never learn who the man is. And we can take some guesses based on how the film plays out, but the dog enters the room with the man, and that is the moment really when the thing... I assume that's supposed to be Clark, right? Is it Clark? One presumes, but they never say. And so because of that, we don't really know where things are going. That does lead to that moment in the kennel though, which is extraordinary and very, very upsetting to me.

That is really my nightmares in a good way. I love movies like this that make me feel that way. But it is a horrifying version of my favorite thing um what else i want to talk a little bit about wilford brimley's computer program i know this is like a big thing for you uh perhaps the biggest flaw well we have to remember that this is a time period where like i think that their ideas about what computers could do were kind of limitless. And in some ways like are kind of more fun than what they wound up being where it's just like looking at Twitter. But like, it's pretty cool.

Like when you look, go back to like mother and alien, you know, and mother can just answer any question you have, but also kill you. Uh, and then this, this freaking like Commodore 64 that Wilford Brimley has that like somehow he's able to run a simulation of what would happen if the thing got to civilization.

It would just be like, yeah, the world would be over in 27,000 hours or 2,700 hours. Well, it's not only that he runs the simulation. It's that the simulation takes like two and a half minutes to determine the fate of the universe. Right. Pretty impressive technology you know especially in a movie that opens with effectively mccready playing computer chess and not being the most sophisticated system well also windows saying i haven't been able to raise anybody on this radio in weeks yeah this is pre-internet so i don't know how he built this

model that gives us this information he's got this amazing computer but like windows is like who knows but you know what though like Windows is like, who knows? But you know what though? Like if you like genre movies, you know that in every genre movie about 40 minutes in, you need a scene that explains what the true stakes of the movie are. And these are the stakes.

The stakes are this thing, this gross thing is going to take over the world. Like that is, that's as high stakes as a movie can possibly get. Forget about these 12 guys. These 12 guys are screwed. It's coming for everyone everyone and that's what's so remarkable about the storytelling too

do we ever get a clear picture as to whether or not the thing is always gonna burst out of you like is there a little bit of like a body snatchers faculty situation where it's like this might actually be better than real life because Or does the thing always explode out of you and turn you into a grotesque statue of cells? This is the original, did Thanos have a point? Well, I'm just wondering whether or not this was a lot of wasted scotch and flamethrowers when it seems like you're just the same dude you were.

You just don't like getting your blood sparked. So this is you at your conformist best. What you're saying is we all should just accept being pod people because there's nothing we can change. And I don't just mean pod people who record eight pods a week like you. No, you mean getting sucked up into the mainframe. Yeah, for sure. That's the thing is you obey like they say in They Live.

You participate in the global economy. You accept your station in life. I'm just asking a question. Why are we so scared? I want to hear your answer. Would you want to be thung by the thing? What's my alternative? The alternative is you and me at the end of the world

with half a bottle of JB Scotch. It's one of my great dreams. I'd love nothing more. And we're sitting outside in the freezing cold. Okay. Think about the conversations

we'd have. Think about what we'd learn about each other. That's true. I mean, MacReady and Childs don't even like each other. Me and you?

Together? Till eternity? Battling an alien? Who says no no i guess you pain's me no i don't so you you would rather be you'd rather die a rugged individualist than live as part of like a collective no a rugged teammate of you if i have to be alone of course i don't want to do that right if i have to abandon my family and all my friends i don't want to do that but if i have companionship in the face of evil in the face no you can't have it both ways you can't have like

your family and your friends and a rewarding life but also like battle the thing you either become the thing or die that's the thing that we're saying i see okay yeah well apologies to my family then um if i don't want to go to Napa, I would love it. Well, it's an interesting question. Does a thing like Cabernet? I love that. The truth is,

that's part of what, this question is part of what makes the movie so resonant is because there are some people who would just accept the fate. But then you think about what happens to Norris and how your body can be destroyed. It just seems always like that. The reason why the thing breaks out of somebody or destroys them is because it's being antagonized. There's a couple of larger questions at play here about whether or not you would be capable of

the isolation that these guys are in. Do you think that you could pull a six-month Arctic winter shift in a science space? What would your gig be, you think? That's a good question. You and I both would like to imagine ourselves as Mac, but I know that I'm Windows or Palmer.

Yes. I'm probably Norris, candidly. Or Gary. That's true. I probably am Gary. I don't know what my job would be. I do know that I moved to California because genuinely the New York cold was breaking me down. Yeah.

And that was a huge factor in the decision I made. And I don't like the cold. You would get off the A train and then one day you would just have like an arachnid head. I had a panic attack on a subway because it was so hot on the train after being so cold outside. I was like, we were not meant to live this way in this environment. It's just Eric Adams warming you up. I haven't had a panic attack since that day. So what's going on? Clearly, I was right. My body was telling me something. Get out of here. Get out of New York. I don't know what my job would be.

Podcaster? Do they have podcasts in Antarctica? I guess I think Windows is one of the earlier podcasters. But it's sort of a one-way show. That's why he's so tired is he's just been potting all day.

He tells them that he's been trying to reach the mainland, but really he's just been like... It's kind of one of those Marin monologues, though. It's like the first 12 minutes of Marin,

but for several weeks in Antarctica. Yeah, Windows has some Lex Friedman vibes. What would your job be? I feel like I would like to not be the burnout. I think I've matured past being Palmer. Okay. I'd like to combine a little bit of the kind of devil may care effervescence of the dude on roller skates.

Is that Knowles? Yeah. The cook? Yeah. T.K. Carter. But also, I think I have like a kind of inquisitive mind now. Maybe I'd be a little bit more like Blair, you know? I mean, you have a Brimley quality.

I'm closer to Blair's age than I am Nalls' age which is crazy to me I'd like to get Brimley's age correct for this podcast conversation well the script it's 50 and the character is supposed to be 50 but that would mean he was 50 for like 40 years of American movies basically

this is remarkable I was right I said he was 47 years old and he was 47 years old when he made this movie I don't even know how I knew that I must have heard that somewhere. Did you see like, this has been going around a lot online, but like that, uh,

Tom Cruise now is older than Wilford Brimley was in the firm. I have. What do you think Wilford Brimley would say about that? Is Wilford Brimley still with us? He passed in 2020. Okay. Uh, I think he would,

he would gruffly say, Oh, Oh, Tom Cruise wants to be us he wants to be us any closing thoughts on the thing now

that we've completely derailed into Brimley I was gonna ask whether or not we're gonna ever have another time in our lives when we're 15 years from now,

20 years from now, are we going to be talking about some undiscovered classic from 2022? That was a flop on its arrival and then wound up being so formative to so many people. The closest thing I can think of to this is how Tumblr and Film Twitter sometimes revives a movie that was mildly overlooked, but usually by a big director. So Miami Vice is a good example of this. But I wouldn't say that Miami Vice has since become a movie people watch once a year the way they do the thing. Maybe I'm misunderstanding. But are we ever going to get a critically revived cult movie again?

Well, this is a whole other podcast episode conversation. I've talked about cult movies a couple of times on the show. I talked with Adam Naiman about it once. Alex Ross Perry and I have talked about them a couple of times.

I don't know. I think because the movie culture is so fragmented and because it was so centralized in 1982 and the box office was such a dominant way of understanding success

that it was easier to build cult classics out of that period of time now everything is a cult classic the biggest movie of the year feels like a cult classic in a way and so i'm not sure i mean i think it's actually an interesting exercise to do around 2002 right now was there anything from 2002 like an interesting example is like city of god came out in 2002, which was not a box office success, but was hailed critically. But didn't it win an Oscar? It may have won an Oscar.

But most of the movies that you look at in a year like that, Minority Report, Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Raimi's Spider-Man movie, Bowling for Columbine,

Punch Drunk Love, Catch Me If You Can, Adaptation, all these movies were either hits or were critically acclaimed. And I don't know if the critical establishment is more sophisticated now. It probably is. As the decades go on, you find that the critical eye is more varied. There are more people talking about films and reviewing films.

But gosh, I don't know. I just don't think that this is possible anymore. What's happened to this movie? It's too bad. I guess it means that we're also like watching more movies than ever and giving more movies than ever a chance. And because the distribution model has been flattened, you don't have a situation where it's like the thing is only playing at

midnight or the thing is only playing at the crappy movie theater across town or something like that. So that's cool. You know, like I can watch a horror movie that was made for a fraction of the things budget and put it up against Maverick So that's cool. I can watch a horror movie that was made for a fraction of the thing's budget and put it up against Maverick and that's fine and watch The Black Phone after that.

It's cool that I have that ability to kind of cycle through it. But I wonder whether or not that's part of what's contributing to the idea of movies being lost and then found. But this is a podcast from two guys who brought you 90 minutes

on Michael Bay's Ambulance. That's true. A box office failure that was mostly critically rejected and that we thought was one of the best movies of the year.

There you go. We did find the thing. And we'll, in 20 years when you guys are like, actually, Ambulance, I've always been a huge fan. It's like,

we have the receipts. You are. Now you have a chance to transform into a ghoulish alien creature now that we finished this pod. So I like we have the receipts. You are. Now you have a chance to transform into a ghoulish alien creature now that we finished this pod. So I wish you well, Chris Ryan. Thank you so much as always, bud. Thanks, man. Now let's go to my conversation with John Carpenter. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points.

Visit superstore.ca to get started. It is my absolute honor to be joined by one of my favorite filmmakers, John Carpenter. John, thanks for doing the show today. My pleasure. John, congrats on your beloved Warriors NBA championship. How are you feeling about that? I'm feeling so good. My whole summer is positive and beautiful.

That's wonderful. It's also the 40th anniversary of the summer release of what I think is your best film, a total masterpiece, The Thing. And I want to talk to you about that movie because we love it so much on the show. I wanted to start by asking you when you fell in love with monster movies. Do you remember? Wow. Oh, wow. Well, I, I, in 52, uh, 1952, uh, saw a movie called it came from outer. It had a big old monster in it. Loved it.

It affected me. And I think that's when it started. And all through the 1950s, I was addicted to bad monster movies. I didn't care, though. I loved them. Loved them. Did you think about what it was that you loved about them?

Did you understand what appealed to you? No, not really. I don't know. I saw an escape in the movies from my reality as a human being. So I'm going to say that's probably a big part of it. You once said that The Thing is your favorite film that you've made. Is that still true? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Why is that? I just think I did some of my best work in The Thing. You were preparing a Western at the time, and then suddenly it seemed like you slid into position on The Thing. How did it happen? How did you come to make it? Well, one of the co-producers on the thing stewart cohen had gone to school

with me we were in school together and uh he had got attached to the thing and knew of my love for the original howard hawks and uh all a lot of doors opened after Halloween was a success. So, oh, this guy can make money, they said. So let's get him to make a movie for us. So that's essentially what it was. You were 33 when you made the film? That's right. Do you remember where you were in your life? And did you feel like your career was going the way you wanted it to?

I don't remember that part. I just remember had just finished Escape from New York. The next morning, I went over to Universal Studios. I was so tired, they got me a temporary office. So I went into the office and laid down on a couch, and then went to sleep because i was beat uh the last minute uh running around on a movie is is exhausting and so it's kind of crazy to think about being exhausted and then taking on a project like the thing which is by far the biggest movie you had made at that time right the biggest budget yeah were... Did you have trepidation about that? Were you concerned

about taking on a bigger project like this? No. You don't think that way. You think, I agreed to do it and so I thought I could do it. I think that's the thinking behind it. Was there a particular challenge in going into

an Antarctica-like setting and cold? Was there a visual challenge that you wanted to take on with the movie? I didn't want to take on a challenge. I wanted every movie to go smoothly. But some of the obstacles we faced were unbelievable. I'm glad I didn't know about them ahead of time. I want to ask you about some of those.

Brutal. Oh, shooting that was brutal. What was the difference between making an independent production and making a movie for Universal? A lot of stuff was available to you that you didn't have on an independent film. On an independent film,

you had to sometimes just make do. And you had to create on the fly. But in a studio movie, boy, you could order it up. It was great. In terms of art direction, it was unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Did you feel like your ingenuity was somehow weakened at all though because you know you're so famed for if you have less money coming up with thoughtful ideas for how to solve problems i don't know about my ingenuity but i uh no it's all the same filmmaking is all the same the storytelling is the same it's just different problems. But the basic craft doesn't matter how much money

you have, you still have to confront certain things. Even Jim Cameron these days has to confront some of the things I confronted. That's true. He has a little bit more money to work with than you've had in the past. Holy Toledo does he ever. You mentioned

the Howard Hawks original film. When you prepared this film, did you go back and look at that film, the adaptation of the Campbell story? I had looked at that movie so many times. I remember showing the editor, Todd Ramsey, the movie. The Hawks

movie, Hawks version. He said, well, there's really nothing in here that's going to affect us, that's going to inform us. But I don't know. I still hold a fondness for it. I still watch it occasionally. I watched it this week.

And I will say, where your movie has aged so brilliantly over 40 years, I would say that the Nibe Hawks movie has aged so brilliantly over 40 years i would say that the the the nibe hawks movie has maybe not aged as well it does have that 50s kind of bad monster movie feeling at times can you not see that because you have such a nostalgia and fondness for it oh i see that i saw that then but uh you have to overlook certain things in love affairs um tell me about the reception of the thing because the film was not a huge commercial success. It was not warmly received critically either. I reread the New York Times review.

I don't know if you remember this, but it was downright mean. It was brutal. And yet, I think your movie has maybe had the single biggest turnaround in terms of appreciation and affection and the way that it's constantly celebrated on these anniversaries do you remember when you felt like the tide was starting to turn on how people felt about it no i don't remember specifically i know i think it was related to the

home video release so a lot of people hadn't seen the movie then they saw it on home video and they saw responded to it what was the reception like it was devastating you know everything that had been positive about halloween reception you're raised up and brought into the room on a on a dais and torches are burning and it's wonderful. Torches are also burning on the reception for the thing, but they're different kind of feel to it. It was just revenge. Look what

this guy did. We built him up and now we're going to tear him down. And they did. Did it feel like a backlash like specifically a response to what you previously accomplished partially uh it's this in the thing i showed everything i just showed it you know and the polite uh polite thing to do is of course don't do that put the thing in shadows because, serious people don't show monsters like this.

We don't, you know, we don't do that. It's like I hadn't, I hadn't successfully completed my toilet training, but, um, they decided to get me for it,

but I don't care. You know, was that a, was that a goal for you to show as much as possible to have this kind of incredibly visceral experience for the viewer? Well, at one point, when Rob Otean showed me what we could do, these creatures, and he came up with the idea that I clung to and I still think is the idea that motivated the movie. The thing can look like anything. It doesn't look like one thing.

Then I realized we have to show this. This is what we need to do, and we need to do it well. We'll have something really special if the thing is right in front of us there, under the light, doing this stuff. Tell me about Rob, because he was very young when you first started working with him. And he's obviously been acclaimed for his work on this film. How did you first come across him?

And what did you guys bond over? Well, I'd worked with Rob earlier on The Fog. He did a couple of little effects for me. And he was, Dan, he was Blake. He was the ghost with the sword that decapitated Father Malone. And Rob was just, he loved movies. He is an acolyte of, I don't remember if it was. I think it was Rick Baker, right?

I think it was. I believe right? I think it was. I believe that's where he came from. But he had done the howling. And so he was so enthusiastic and he had such loving ideas. And then we just began to work and that worked out he uh he seemed it seemed like he had a painstaking process for building the creatures and designing the effects what was that like working with that kind of uh that kind of time frame well there was no time frame it all fell apart we just he just. You know, schedules came and

went, the deadlines came and went. That's not his forte. That's not what he does, you know, he creates. So, you know, he would work all night and sometimes several days in a row.

He had to be taken to the hospital once, I think, for exhaustion. He wasn't taking care of himself. So he'd come in, I remember one night, came into the, his shop where he worked called Heartland.

And it was the middle of the night. God, it was late. There was a TV playing Plan 9 from Outer Space. Oh, God. Really? Maybe this is where we're headed. Was he looking for inspiration or what?

I don't know why. It's just fun. Something to distract the people who were working on the movie from what they were doing. You know, the film, like you said, shows everything and is impressively grotesque. And it holds up in that way. It still is kind of blood curdling in the way that you show how the monster works. But I was wondering if there were things that Rob suggested or that you guys discussed, or maybe you came up with that were too far.

That were something you feel like we could never get away with with this or it's too gruesome to even show an audience no there wasn't anything too far that wasn't one of the problems they didn't work or we didn't have time but it was never too much so you had to scale back some things that weren't necessarily working well yeah i mean but that you always do that. You always have to... When you have creativity that's unbridled by reality, by schedules and money, they always have to press it and get it to fit. So I had to do that a little bit. I want to talk about a couple of your other collaborators here. One thing that jumps out to me as I think about the movie is this is the first feature film you made in which you did not serve as a writer or a co-writer. Was it helpful in a way to be unburdened of something like that, even though you're still contributing your ideas to the movie?

Are you kidding? It's fabulous. I'd never want to write again. It's awful. It's awful work. You sit alone in a room. Oh, God, it's awful. But you wrote so many of your films over the years. I don't know why. No one would stop me. Well, you have good ideas. Not necessarily. Bill Lancaster had

written a really terrific movie I saw years ago. Bad News Bears. And he came in with the idea and his focus was what I loved about this project, which is the blood test scene. There's a reason I wanted to do this movie. I thought I could really do something special with that. I want to talk about that scene a little bit and also just the kind of reception

of the movie in general and the time that it existed in. And maybe if it wasn't totally understood in its time for a reason. You've talked about the rise of the AIDS crisis in the face of the release of this movie and how it has a kind of chilling after effect as you watch it. Were you aware of that going on in our culture? Were you trying to comment on some of those things? No, I wasn't trying to comment. A lot has been said about why the audiences didn't go. I don't know why.

Frankly, I don't know why. Maybe it was the advertising campaign. Maybe they... Spielberg, who really has his pulse on the audience, and always has, figured that they needed

an upcry so this definitely was not an upcry he had the right idea there going with E.T. serve as a box office yeah it's a fascinating year do you have an awareness of that?

this is the year of Blade Runner this is the year of Poltergeist there was something in the air that was kind of science fiction and kind of doom like but also et emerging as the biggest movie of the year seems to kind of like i don't know if it proves or disproves something would you have an awareness of that in 1982 well no you see what the result the year of all this stuff 82 was the result of the years before when similar movies made a lot of money. You've got to realize all this stuff is motivated by money.

Studios and producers look and they say, oh, look at this. This guy made a movie that made X dollars. Get him. And we'll make a bunch of these horror movies, they say. Well, science fiction movies. We'll make money. That's all they care about. They don't want to be attacked like the thing was.

They want to be loved. Everybody wants love. We're giving you some today. You know, you said your career would have gone differently if this movie had been celebrated upon its release. Yeah. So I'm going to, I'm going to pose something to you.

If you could trade the thing being an instant success for everything that transpired in your career after it, would you do that? No. Why not? No, no. No,

I'm very proud of the thing. And that was a movie I made. I'm going to stand by it. I'm not going to lose myself over bad reviews and bad reception you can't do that gotta maintain yourself in what way do you think your career would have been different did you fantasize about that had it been a success i would have had more success we could have gone offered better projects for money um you know in addition to not being the writer of this film, you didn't score it, which is also unusual.

You worked with a great Ennio Morricone who recently passed away. That's right. But nobody wanted me to score it. Is that true? They didn't want me to score it. No. It just was assumed I wouldn't score it i didn't have nothing i had no track record

but you did the score for halloween what please i'm telling you this is what they thought you know you're seeing things from and from what they look like now that's not what they thought of course he's not going to score it and bring it't even bring it up. They didn't even, they didn't want me. So we had a chance to get Ennio Morricone. Of course, you know. What was your relationship to his, his film music before you worked with him? Oh God.

I think maybe his score for a once upon a time in the West is maybe one of the top three scores of all time. I mean, nothing like that. Nothing. Beautiful music. Wow. And favorite. Nothing like that. Nothing. Beautiful music. Wow. And he was a lovely man.

He was very kind and very nice. So I really enjoyed working with him. He gave me some good stuff. What did you tell him you wanted from the score for the film? I only said one thing. You know, we went to Rome, Stuart Cohen and I went to Rome, and I had a translator. And he had a couple of pieces he played for me. And I was, you know, overwhelmed by being around him.

He was just so great. So he said, you know, I was going to comment on the pieces that he came up with. I said, well, just have, I want less notes. Just play less notes. That's all I knew how to say. So he did. That opening credit music is less notes. Yeah, it's pretty great.

I mean, it's true to your style, too. It almost feels like him interpreting your musical style which is part of what works so well about it yeah so uh a couple years ago i went on tour with my son godson who played music and we played the thing and this there's one piece of music from that movie that i can play. It's simple. It works so well though. You know, I'm curious, you made a lot of films with very strong, clear leads. Kurt Russell, of course, is the lead in several of your films, but even Jamie Lee and Halloween and many other movies. But this is a real ensemble piece. One of your few ensemble pieces,

your first time you had a big ensemble and a cast, what was it like to do, to direct an ensemble like this for you at that time? It was great. Uh, you know, we had a lot of rehearsal and, and my job as a director is to give the narrative what it needs and give the, give the actors what they need to play the characters.

So it's a little chain there. To serve the narrative, we have to have happy actors who can play the parts. And that's what we did in the rehearsals. They got to know who they were. They got to know each other, and they improvised scenes, and everybody kind of submitted who they were. They got to know each other and they improvised scenes and everybody kind of cemented who they were. That's the big thing.

In some movies, some filmmakers will play mind games, especially in a circumstance like this where paranoia and distrust are a huge part of the film. Did you pursue anything like that? Were these guys all buddies and that they were just performing this paranoia on screen? Well, I don't understand somebody who does that. I mean, it's not in my DNA to do something like that. I'm a straightforward guy. Here's your mark. Stand here.

Look over there. You know, it's nothing more than that. So, no, I wouldn't do that. I know I've heard people of directors who like to divide and get friction between, I don't understand that. One of the things I love reading about around this film is related to that, which is that a lot of philosophical and story-driven conversations seem to come up during the making of the movie because of this incredible ambiguity that you've got in the story how did you handle that how did you deal with 10 actors asking you you know am i the thing am i the thing am i the thing

well mostly just i kept moving forward trying to avoid deep philosophical discussions i remember i I remember that Kurt started asking me, would you know if you were the thing? I couldn't answer that. So I began to say anything that came to my mind just to get him to hush and keep acting, keep moving forward. We have to finish this now, guys. I don't know.

You can't worry about those things that you can't explain. Did you ever come to any conclusions yourself about any of those things? Did you care to come to any conclusions? No, no, no, no. No, no. This is a creature that imitates things perfectly. That's all I want to know. I don't want to know anything else. I think that's part of what makes it so effective.

One thing I noticed in revisiting it is in the movie, there's only a handful of POV shots. You know, what appears to be almost like the perspective of the thing, but you don't totally define that. We don't totally know if that's what's going on. Were all of those moves pre-planned and storyboarded or is that did you find things like that as you were making the movie i hope they were planned i really do and uh most everything was planned out i just like i wanted it to go uh there was one incredible

scene i'm really proud of we had a we had this part wolf jeb who was the dog and he was to walk down this hallway and look in a door and then go into a room across the hall the camera was right in front of him he never looked at us once he was trained so well he was smart that's why the part wolf so he never never looked never his eyes never crossed the camera lens it's unbelievable i'm very proud of it they say never work with animals and children because they're so hard to tangle with but you get some amazing dog acting in this movie yeah well i am all about dogs let me tell you right now um i wanted to ask you a little bit about the apocalypse trilogy you know prince of darkness dog acting in this movie. Yeah, well, I am all about dogs, let me tell you right now. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the Apocalypse trilogy.

You know, Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness in this movie. Is that something that you knew you wanted to do back when you were making the thing? Oh, there's an honorable mention, and that's the first,

and I'm not remembering things anymore, that's the first Masters of Horror I did. Oh, of course. The Abnorman Readness. That's an honorable mention to the Apocalypse Trilogy. Oh, okay. So when you were doing the thing, did you know you wanted to pursue these stories

or was it only after you made all of them that you realized they fit together? It was after I'd made the thing. The implications of that, the world was going to end. And really, if you take it through reality of the situation, there's nothing you can do. It's an incredible invasion theory.

I mean, if you have a creature who can imitate perfectly, there's no defense against it. After he's taken over enough people, he's everybody. And he just takes you over. It's all over. The world is conquered. So I realized, oh, this is the end of the world. This is an apocalypse.

So then the next one, I began to say, I should do a couple more of these because i really admire this i love it i'm drawn to it it's a little bit of a sidebar but i feel like prince of darkness is your most underrated movie when i love me i love the the kind of the manifestation of evil you know that like that green swirl vibe yeah yeah i really like prince of darkness it was a kick to do wow do you think that that movie is uh is due for like a bigger revisit in the in the coming years uh any movie that anybody wants to revisit of mine i welcome it um one thing i noticed in revisiting the film too this isn't always true of all your films, but it is true in this one, is it's disorienting and very mysterious and even confusing for the first hour.

Was that very purposeful to withhold as much as possible? No, I didn't want to be confusing. Did you not understand there was a monster from outer space? I did, but you know, the barking dog being chased by a helicopter is one of the more unsettling ways of opening a movie and so when you start yeah but you understand later don't you you do more about that you do i i'm i think in our culture now we're so used to having our handheld through a lot of our storytelling it's always been true though my friend let me tell you there's an old saying in the movie business tell them what they're going to see tell them

what they're seeing tell them what they've just seen that's about that's how people want to run movies that's how they want movies to go that's so disappointing well i know but we have to grow up here all of us but part of what's fun about the movie too is it does have a kind of agatha christie-esque approach to it as well were you were you a fan of stories like that did you consider it in that vein it's fun those movies are fun and stories are fun sure they're hard to do though they're hard to make uh interesting and uh but oh yeah sure i love that well i'm sorry it was confusing you can't i had to throw a lot of suspicion everywhere

because I didn't want you to know what was going on exactly. No, it's brilliant. Somebody doesn't start twitching in the corner because they've been taken over. So there's no sign for you. There's no, I don't tell you, let you off the hook and say, oh, this guy is a thing. I think part of the reason why, another reason why the movie has persisted is because it has this really kind of doom-like ending, this apocalyptic feeling.

Yes, it does. Because we all feel like we're kind of fucked. But I read that you shot an alternate happy ending. Is that true? No, I didn't shoot it. No, there was never an ending shot. There was a shot, a close-up of Kurt Russell having made it at the end in case I needed to pull something out of my butt.

I didn't have, you know, there was no ending. Bill Ironcash's original ending was, these guys are rescued and they come out of the helicopter and say, which way to a hot meal. The idea being they've all been taken over. Yeah. No, we don't want to do that.

That's too dark. That's too apocalyptic. Oh, it's silly. It's stupid. Um, what do you, did you get any pushback on the the the kind of ambiguous

downer ending from the studio since it wasn't did i are you kidding me uh well you know yes i did that everybody was worried and once they saw the ending on film oh my god this is what we bought into and it everybody was trying to convince me to do something different nothing worked though I I said okay I'm gonna try I'm gonna try something you I'll change the ending where Kurt Russell blows up the monster and everybody's happy mm-hmm and I will test it and we did it came back no different than the other the bad ending the ending that we you see now it's because of the story there's no hope mm-hmm I'm telling you a story that has no hope to it there's no happy ending to this we're fucked sorry excuse me no

that's that's welcome on this podcast um it is i can say fucked please do please fucking a man one other thing about the reception of the movie do you think if this movie was released in the winter instead of the summer it would have been more successful i don't know i i talked to bob ramey at one point i said why don't we why don't you consider releasing this calling it who goes there and uh but uh no they wouldn't go for it i don't know about the seasonal thing i don't know it just feels so i mean you know you're Maybe we should have released it around Christmas time for a happy movie. That would have been enlightening.

This movie was remade, like a handful of your other films. What's your relationship to your stuff getting remade now? Well, it depends. If I've originated the movie, created it, then I get some money, which I love. If I haven't, then they just do what they I love if I haven't and they just do what they want which I don't love but it's somebody else's movie mm-hmm you know I'm presently the associate producer on these Halloween new Halloween movies I'm doing the scores to them mm-hmm but it's not my movie. It's not really my Halloween. It's David Gordon Green, who's a great director.

So that's fine. And I get money for that. See? That's positive. That's a positive thing. Yes. I want you to get more money, John. I'm a happy capitalist.

Believe me. When you look back on the movie, and I don't know when the last time you watched it was, what is it that you think makes it persist now, 40 years i don't know i don't watch my own movies and i want to see him i don't want to remember him probably the outrageousness of the monster is one thing but i think i think it's the the story of the acting i think is strong stuff i think kurt's great and it's one of my favorite roles he's ever done. He is magnificent. I just think it's all driving to a point, and you have no hope.

But that's a terrible thing to say. No, I think many people agree with you, especially now. Well, it's a tough time. We'll get through it. See, I'm actually an optimist time we'll get through it see i'm actually an optimist we'll get through this somehow how can the man who made prince of darkness and the thing be an optimist i found that hard to believe uh what i put on the screen is not necessarily my personal beliefs that's a movie you see a supernatural doesn't really exist in real life it exists in

movies though and that's what i'm i'm dedicated to i'm dedicated to showing you things that aren't possible and making them possible especially in the thing but uh as far as i, the thing hasn't landed and taken over. It's not real. It's fake. It's movies. I know, but you have consistently, and this is true in movies like They Live as well, many of your films seem to have this prescient nature about what our culture is like. You've been told this many times before. Maybe, maybe not.

I don't know. The escape from Nework didn't happen yet it did not happen we never know it became disneyland i didn't think of that well that's a different kind of horror movie john um i'm really grateful for the time you've given us we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last thing great thing that they've seen have you seen anything great lately great the last great one give me a second here okay let me think about that oh yes uh the actress who won the academy award uh for best actress uh in the tammy faye baker story oh jessica chastain that movie was great she was great in that movie so what did you like about that? I would have never guessed you to pick that.

Her performance was unbelievable. Yeah, she transforms. She's a favorite of ours on the show. Oh, she's great. I was just so impressed. So impressed. That's a great and very unlikely pick. John Carpenter, thank you so much for doing the show.

Thank you. You take care of yourself now. Okay, I will. All right. Thank you to John Carpenter. Holy shit. We had him on the show. That's very cool. Thanks to Chris Ryan, of course, and thank you to producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Later this week, after celebrating

a legendary horror master, we'll be following it up with a contemporary master of horror, Jordan Peele Nope is coming See you then