Editorials
40 Years Later, the Keys to the Thing’s Greatness Lies in The Sequels You Never Knew It Had
Take yourself back to the first time you saw John Carpenter’s The Thing. Those final shots of MacCready and Childs in the ruins of Outpost #31, looking at each other with that sneaking suspicion, scrutinizing their faces to find some sort of indication, some closure over who is really who. And if you’re anything like me, you might immediately find yourself wondering, what the hell is supposed to fill the void for want of another film like this as the end credits roll?
And the answer isn’t the 2011 prequel, surprisingly. One day I will get into the merits of that oft-maligned film.
With the 40th Anniversary of The Thing bringing repertory screenings crashing into cinemas, this is the perfect time to highlight the most fascinating of John Carpenter’s creations. While The Thing regularly clocks in as many viewers’ favorite horror film, most don’t recognize its spiritual successors in the genre, and they probably don’t even consider them sequels.
Understanding John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy
I’m talking about the other two-thirds of the Apocalypse Trilogy, an unofficial series of films conceived by John Carpenter following The Thing’s release. These include Prince of Darkness, and In The Mouth of Madness. Released over a span of 12 years, they explore possible causes for the collapse of society, human life, and even the destruction of all reality. There’s a link of chained, cinematic DNA between them all, and I think these movies are a perfect example of why The Thing is still so great. They serve as the offspring of The Thing, elaborating and surpassing their predecessor in certain aspects of their production, boiling down what makes Carpenter’s filmmaking so great.
How the Apocalypse Trilogy Expands The Thing’s Themes
No horror movie composer can really hold a candle to the Ennio Morricone collaboration that Carpenter composed for The Thing. And while that soundtrack is a masterclass on making pulse-pounding music that accentuates a film, the other entries in the trilogy emphasize how music can bring more out than just simple paranoia.
Madness & Darkness add more audio textures that are thematically intertwined with the plot; many of these tracks’ soundscapes have hymnal undertones that match with the films’ explorations of religion; it employs synths that mimic organs, and Carpenter pairs subtle choir vocals to go with them. All three films have soundtracks that don’t just evoke more raw and tense emotion; they explore using music to evoke an environment’s more subtle details.
Practical Effects That Redefined Body Horror
The Thing is by far the chief example of how Carpenter’s films push effects to the limits of the human imagination. A materials varied monster factory overseen by a special effects neurosurgeon Rob Bottin, and his 35-member crew is responsible for putting together some of the most innovative effects to this date out there, utilizing the likes of microwaved bubblegum mixed with plastic, lube dyed green, and filled with explosive squibs, and even creamed corn for textural enhancements to put the creature in creature feature.
Prince of Darkness is similarly unnerving due to its novel and ambitiously done special effects throughout the film. It utilizes everything from shimmering pools of extremely toxic liquid mercury to trucks with brick walls attached to them, to almost 40,000 live insects inside a fake human body. It manages to be just as absolutely sickening and skin-crawling as its predecessor on a fifth of the budget—a cool $3 million compared to The Thing’s hefty $15 mil. At their core, the effects don’t have to be burning cash to fuel them; they can be relatively simplistic, and Carpenter knows how to work with his crews to make the simple, explosively complex looking to the human eye.
World Shattering Cinematography
And what a talented eye John has. When you want to portray that the walls are closing in on your cast, you need to know how to frame and shoot a world where everything is falling apart. The decay rate varies between each film, and the cinematography of each is finely tailored to that fact.
We get three radically different settings for these films ranging from the arctic research base to a single dilapidated church, to a small town that may or may not even be real and the world it’s tenuously tied to. Carpenter plays to his natural strengths with each when it comes to shot composition; we get those trademark long takes, wide shots, and shot-blocking that give you a sense of dwindling space as characters move through their environments. The color grading of Madness (see: the color palette becoming cooler and darker) and the slowly diminishing light in Darkness quietly and expertly show the expanding influence of the film’s villains and their rewriting of rules as they close in on their targets.
The film is shot to enhance a rapidly escalating claustrophobia, even if there seems like there’s somewhere to run. The space is getting smaller—you’re just not aware of it yet.
Why the Endings of the Apocalypse Trilogy Hit So Hard
The endings of horror movies can make or break them. Despite how radically different the three are for each, they’re all unforgettable finales because they bring up the numbness caused by devastation, either emotionally, mentally, or materially.
The films that follow The Thing are the split halves of the expertly crafted grey, unsure ending that we get from Carpenter in that film. Prince of Darkness, despite its tragedy, is somewhat hopeful and hints toward a crisis that has been postponed but not outwitted; not all is lost, but enough is to make you feel empty.
In The Mouth of Madness rejects any sense of possible good in favor of a fate so terrible we don’t even get to see the brunt of its carnage, witnessing a gutted world and being the last left alive to be mocked by its new rulers. The movies don’t revel in the destruction as much as they home in on how small and weak that destruction makes the characters feel. Its cosmic horror at its greatest.
So, when you finish your rewatch of The Thing this weekend and are looking for something to scratch that “abandon all hope” itch, tune into Carpenters’ other greatest hits and prepare to have your world blown away all over again.
The United States spent most of this year celebrating its 250th anniversary. There have been parades, fireworks, and endless reminders of what the nation wants us to think are its founding ideals. Yet anniversaries are as much about what we choose to remember as they are about what we choose to forget. There is another anniversary this year. Five years ago this month, Candyman was released. The fact that both that film and America are sharing an anniversary this year may have been an accident, but that makes it no less significant.
Released amid another national reckoning over race, Nia DaCosta’s film asks a question that every celebration of America ought to confront: Is it possible to commemorate this nation without fully reckoning with the violence woven into its history? More than a sequel to a horror classic, Candyman is a meditation on the ghosts that haunt America because it has never fully reckoned with the past that created them.
How the Original Candyman Confronted America’s Racial History
The original Candyman understood this. Released in 1992 and set in the almost post-apocalyptic urban decay that was Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, Bernard Rose’s film arrived only months after the L.A. Race Riots, a moment when this country was coming to terms with the way the country’s relationship with Black folks was shaped by decades of segregation and racism.
Most audiences saw a supernatural slasher about a hook-handed killer summoned by saying his name five times into a mirror. But beneath the horror was a far more unsettling story. Candyman was about the lingering consequences of America’s racial history and the way white America has sometimes turned Black suffering into myth instead of confronting the systems that produced it.
The film’s true horror was never simply Candyman. It was the realization that monsters can be born from histories a nation refuses to face. That is exactly where the 2021 film expands the original’s vision.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Turns One Ghost Into Many
Bernard Rose’s Candyman explored the legacy of a single act of racist terror. Nia DaCosta’s film argues that the tragedy wasn’t confined to Daniel Robitaille, the man who became the monster. The 2021 film posits that Candyman is not one man but many.
Daniel Robitaille was lynched for loving a white woman. Sherman Fields takes on the mantle of the supernatural slasher because he was beaten to death by police after being falsely accused of harming a child. Anthony McCoy ultimately becomes part of the same legend. Their stories span generations, but they are connected by a nation that repeatedly produces the same injustice under different names at different points in history. The genius of the sequel is that it transforms Candyman from an individual ghost into a symbol of America’s recurring racial violence.
Candyman Shows How History Repeats Itself
History, the film suggests, is not something that happened once. It is something that keeps happening. That is why Candyman is one of my favorite films to teach in my Film and Philosophy course.
Students walk into class expecting a horror movie. They leave wrestling with questions about history, memory, and justice. We spend little time talking about jump scares or gore. (Because, let’s be honest, there is not much of that in the film.) Instead, we ask why some histories become legends while others are forgotten, what societies owe their victims, and whether a nation can ever move forward without honestly confronting the violence that shaped it.
The Horror of Remembering What America Wants to Forget
A good horror film reveals what we fear. What makes Candyman great is how it reveals what we would rather not remember. That is what haunted me the first time I saw it, long after the credits had rolled.
Five years after its release, Candyman remains one of the most unsettling movies in recent years because the history it confronts is not safely behind us. The original film understood that America’s racial violence could not simply be buried, while the 2021 film showed how easily that violence can be reproduced across generations.
Its Unquestionable Legacy in Horror
As America celebrates 250 years, Candyman reminds us that commemorating the nation’s founding requires remembering all this country’s history, including the parts that make the celebration uncomfortable.
We cannot exorcise a ghost by refusing to acknowledge why it exists. Perhaps that is the film’s most important lesson. The past does not haunt us because we remember it. It haunts us because we don’t.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
