Editorials
Revisit John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ From the Point of View of the Virus Itself
John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi/horror remake The Thing is not only one of the greatest horror remakes of all time, it’s up there as one of the best horror movies period. There are few people who will speak ill of The Thing and it’s understandable why. It has great characters, a solid script, timeless practical FX, and an unsettling score, all of which combine into an experience that, while unappreciated upon release, has become one of the pinnacles of cinema.
It’s a movie that has drawn a lot of investigation and critique. Some find it to be a feminist film where the virus itself is a female entity. Others look into the philosophy of the situation and the challenges it presents. While these theories can be fascinating and add depth and layers to the film previously unthought of, everyone has the right to view the film from their own angle and through their own lens.
One such fascinating approach comes from author Peter Watts, who wrote a brilliant short story titled “The Things“, which follows the story we’ve seen but this time it’s from the point of view of the virus itself. Not content with just retelling the film and its events, Watts creates an entire backstory, something deep and rich about this alien biological threat and how it moves and grows. Fascinatingly, he also gives the virus a wide range of emotions, taking the time to discuss its fears and its concerns, not just with the humans it’s facing at the Antarctic base but also from its own knowledge of the universe. According to the story, this is a being that has colonized and overtaken countless planets. So why, it ponders, has no one come to save it when it was trapped in ice for those thousands of years? How can it preserve itself and ensure its survival?
The story – which has the following accolades: 2011 Hugo Award Nominee, 2010 BSFA Award Finalist, 2010 Shirley Jackson Award Winner, 2011 Finalist: The Locus Award for Best Short Story, 2011 Theodore Sturgeon Award Nominee – is magnificently crafted because, at least for me, it elicited a strange sense of sympathy for “The Thing”. It is desperate to survive and its intentions are pure but it clearly has no concept of humanity and what makes us so, well…human. As the virus moves throughout the characters of the film, it begins to realize that humans are like nothing it’s ever encountered before and it begins to realize the magnitude of the situation.
What makes this story so fascinating is how detailed and intricately its written. It really does feel like we’re in the point of view of something inhuman, something alien. Every sentence demands that we exit the safety of our own experiences and try to empathize with something whose sole purpose is to take us over and erase us entirely. Obviously, I highly recommend that you give it a read when you have a chance. if you want an audio version, you can listen right here.
Alright, now that I’m done here, what are some stories that you love? Are there any that have fundamentally changed how you viewed a movie/game/comic/whatever?
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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