By BILL REICK
Starring John Carpenter, Kurt Russell and Keith David
Written and directed by Ian Nathan
CreatorVC
By now, the story surrounding The Thing is nearly as well-known as the movie itself. Horror fans all know the tale: John Carpenter comes off the back-to-back-to-back bangers of Halloween, The Fog and Escape From New York. How does he follow this classic threepeat? Well, Carpenter chooses to adapt John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There? The director chooses to avoid trodding the same path as Howard Hawks’ interpretation, The Thing From Another World, and instead offers a more by-the-book version of the story.
The result would eventually be hailed as a classic, but at the time, The Thing was dead on arrival. Roger Ebert famously attacked Carpenter’s film, calling it a disappointing “gross-out” movie. On the other hand, The Thing failed to out-gross much of its competition at the box office, opening against E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which gave viewers a much more optimistic view of alien life.
While that telling of The Thing’s slow-and-steady reappraisal is now part of the movie’s legacy, there’s still a lot of meat on the bone when it comes to behind-the-scenes details. Even the most devoted fans surely don’t know the full story. Luckily, the documentary team CreatorVC offers a brand new, exhaustive take on the tale with THE THING EXPANDED, a five-hour exploration of the film’s production.
The breadth of this documentary is truly impressive, providing a “no-stone-unturned” approach to the 44-year-old film. The level of involvement from the movie’s core creators allows for unprecedented first-hand accounts of how it all went down. John Carpenter, Kurt Russell and legendary director of photography Dean Cundey guide viewers from inception to release and beyond. They’re joined by every surviving member of the cast. Keith David (Childs), Thomas G. Waites (Windows), David Clennon (Palmer) and many others offer their account of what it was like on the set, and what made The Thing such a special movie.
They’re joined by filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro, Eli Roth and Frank Darabont, each grounding the documentary with context, providing a history of horror, and showing us where The Thing fits in.
While the assembled famous faces make for a formidable callsheet, it’s their openness and know-how that really make THE THING EXPANDED a must-see. These aren’t your regular talking heads. These sprout tentacles and scuttle across the floor, see! Really, though, this is a never-before-gathered group that brings more than expected. Sure, there are the tried-and-true anecdotes that most have heard before. But you can tell that the actors and filmmakers who convene for interviews are determined to make THE THING EXPANDED an exceptional documentary.
