THE THING’S SPIDER-HEAD
The 1980s are the golden age of practical effects in horror movies, but what is the greatest sequence? The transformation scene in An American Werewolf In London? Brundlefly blown apart in The Fly? The gloopy orgy scene in Society? Nah, for our money, it’s this WTF outrage in The Thing.
It starts as geologist Norris (Charles Hallahan) is taken to the infirmary with a suspected heart attack. Outpost doctor Copper (Richard Dysart) applies the defibrillators, only for Norris’ torso to reveal a maw full of teeth that chomp off the doc’s forearms. Our hero, MacReady (Kurt Russell), torches the shapeshifting space monster that’s assumed Norris’ identity, but while the body burns, the Norris-Thing’s neck elongates and the head slides down to the floor. Then, the pièce de résistance: two eye stalks and six spider legs sprout out to allow the upturned head to scuttle towards the exit. “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding,” gasps mechanic Palmer (David Clennon). Quite.
It was special makeup effects creator and designer Rob Bottin, 21 years of age, who suggested that the titular Thing has traversed many planets and can twist into the shape of anything it’s come into contact with. Director John Carpenter, who’d first worked with Bottin on The Fog, thought his ideas were “too weird”, but Bottin brought them too life thus: Hallahan sculpted from the neck down; a hydraulic mechanism to rip through arms made of wax bones, Jell-O, and plastic veins (a double amputee doubling for Dysart did the rest); a replica of Hallahan’s head stretched out by a hydraulic ramp, with melted plastic and bubble gum providing the ooze; and then a mechanical head for close ups of the Spider-Head, and a radiocontrolled head for the long shots. Meanwhile, genius DoP Dean Cundey (Halloween, Jurassic Park) used a series of small lights to control just what we see and what we don’t.
Truth is, we see a lot – nauseated reviewers at the time bemoaned the “wretched excess” and labelled the movie “instant junk”. The Thing is now considered a sci-fi-horror masterpiece, and this is its standout scene. JG