‘Full of Sh*t’: Carpenter Outraged By The Thing Theory Promoted by Crew Member
Thought the finale mystery was solved? Carpenter begs to differ.
The ending of The Thing was one of the factors that made it enter the pantheon of cult horror films. Without exaggeration, the final mystery of the movie is one of the most intriguing in the history of cinema.
Recently, Carpenter trolled fans once again. The director admitted that he knows which of the two survivors is an alien, but will not tell anyone. And we'd like to say that we didn't really want to know, but well, we do.
Carpenter also commented on a popular theory proposed by cinematographer Dean Cundey. According to Cundey, throughout the movie you could tell who was an alien and who wasn't by the sparkle in the characters' eyes.
If the polar explorer was "possessed" by an alien, then the light would not be reflected in his eyes. So one could conclude that Childs was the thing at the end of the movie, but MacReady was not.
However, everyone who thought they had solved the ending of The Thing, Carpenter is here to disappoint you.
According to him, Cundey has no idea about the solution, and if such a trick with light really takes place throughout the movie, then in the finale it does not work. In an interview with ComicBook, the director teased the cinematographer:
“[Dean Cundey] doesn't know. He has no idea. He puts the lights up. He puts the lights up, and we were in the snow. He has no clue. You tell him that. Tell him he's full of sh*t.”
Well, that's pretty definitive myth-busting.
Few people know that John Carpenter originally created a fairly straightforward ending – MacReady was rescued by the troops, and then proved that he was not a monster and that the threat to humanity had been eliminated.
But the director did not include this finale, not even for test screenings. He wanted the movie to end on the pessimistic note – the alien seems to have been killed, but the two surviving people do not know whether one of them is "possessed." And all they can do is freeze in the ruins of the blown up base.
Source: ComicBook