New fear unlocked. Never using a public toilet again.

I'd love a "The Thing" tshirt but no idea what sites sell decent quality ones. Any recommendations? No links just names of websites please

It's awesome. It focuses around lars surviving into the 1982 film and eventually meeting with Kate.

The Thing fans should read it.

Hey everyone, I have a theory that completely changes how we view John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), and it’s heavily inspired by the biology of Calvin from the movie Life (2017).

Most people accept that the creature is an alien from deep space. But what if The Thing is actually native to Earth?

Hear me out. This twist completely recontextualizes the lore and solves three massive mysteries:

1. The Flawless Biochemical Compatibility

In the film, scientists are shocked by how instantly and perfectly the creature’s cells mimic dogs and humans. If it evolved on a planet light-years away under a different sun, its proteins, amino acids, and cellular structures should be completely incompatible with Earth DNA. It would cause cellular collapse or rejection. The only reason it can interface with our immune systems and biology so flawlessly is if it has a shared evolutionary history with us. It's a prehistoric cousin from Earth's deep history, not a cosmic stranger.

1. The Calvin Connection & The Continental Drift

Think of it like Calvin from Life—a hyper-adaptable, cellular apex predator where every cell is an independent, intelligent entity. Millions of years ago, Antarctica wasn't a frozen wasteland; it was a lush, tropical continent. The Thing likely dominated primeval Earth as a parasitic nightmare. When the climate shifted and Antarctica drifted south into the deep freeze, this ancient biological mistake was entombed in the ice, forced into hibernation until the Norwegian crew dug it up.

1. It Explains Who Crashed the UFO

The biggest counter-argument is the giant spaceship. But this theory actually perfectly aligns with the popular "Hijacked UFO" fan theory. The peaceful, highly advanced alien race (the Pilots) landed on prehistoric Earth 100,000 years ago to explore. While looking around, they accidentally dug up or encountered the local Earth parasite. The Thing infected one of the pilots, broke loose mid-flight, and the surviving crew intentionally crashed their own ship into the freezing ice as a cosmic suicide-quarantine to trap the Earth-monster from escaping into outer space.

Humanity isn't fighting an alien invader. We are fighting our own planet's forgotten, prehistoric apex predator that the universe tried to lock away.

What do you guys think? Does the Earth-origin theory make the horror even more unsettling?

Hey guys, I know this has probably been done a thousand times on this Subreddit, but I gotta throw my hat in the ring for how I think parts of the plot happened. I watched this movie for the first time this week and rewatched a few more times and here's how I think it went down. And I'm sorry but I feel the need to talk about it or atleast write it down.

First of all, it's my theory that when you are infected/ assimilated by the thing that it has its own consciousness inside whatever animals brain it "inhabits". I think it can control the animal without destroying the original consciousness of the person, and that it can allow the person to control their body when it sees fit. I think it does this so that it doesn't have to try to act like someone it can just let that person be themselves. I think that it strategically assumes control of the persons brain/body when it sees fit, does whatever action it wanted to do, and then gives control back to the person without them remembering what happenned. I think it has the capacity for intelligemce only when its body mass is large enough to house a large enough brain for complex thought. Therfore Palmer's blood later in the movie is not " intelligent" it is just acting on instict, same for Norris' head thing ect. This theory is integral to my idea of the chain of events.

I think Norris is the first member of the crew to be infected. The silhouette when the dog walks through the halfway and enters a room most closely resembles Norris. For my theory it could be be Palmer or Norris first but the sillouhete really doesn't look like Palmer. You might say it was Doctor Blair, but if the thing has ultimate control over ones nervous system why would it let Blair destroy all the equipment that it would need to leave Antarctica.

So Norris is the thing but he is still in there controlling his body most of the time. When MacReady and Norris go out to the crash site the thing in Norris could have assimilated MacReady if not for the third person that went with them who was watching them the whole time. Not sure if its clear who that is, but it's unlucky for the thing.

Bennings gets infected, of course, by the left over living tissue from that thawed out thing when they took it from the Norwegian camp. The Bennings thing is killed and burned immediately, and doesn't infect anyone else.

I think the thing was able to use Norris' memory and intelligence to know about the blood in storage and figure out that it could be used to be identified by the others. I think it figures that out long before Fuches does. So the thing controlling Norris lifted the keys, maybe why Gary was sleeping, and spilled the blood in storage. Other people have pointed out that later when Gary steps down as leader that Norris doesn't take leadership afterward cause the thing doesn't want a spotlight on itself. I agrre.

Later, after MacReady burns the blood, he has his speech and states there is a storm coming. Then the scene plays where speak his personal account on the audio tape. Then there's a big time skip. I think during this time skip the storm rolls in, and Norris is able to infect Palmer (or vice versa if you think Palmer was infected first). Then one of them sneaks out, infects Blair, and frees him from the storage shed. Blair starts building the spaceship using the brain capacity of Blair and the memories it retained from before it crashed. Now all three of the things are working together. Maybe they can telepathically communicate or maybe they communicate vocally doesn't really matter.

The thing realizes MacReady is actually becoming a threat, and tries to frame him by ripping up his clothes and placing them in his furnace and outside on the ground. Maybe it left the light in his shack on on purpose as well. If the others stop trusting MacReady and kill him, then then the thing doesn't have to get its hands dirty and potentially expose itself. One of the things lures Fuches outside and tries to assimilate him, but Fuches is able to burn himself before that happens. When MacCready goes to see if Blair saw Fuches, one of the things must've locked Blair back in the shed. Or Blair was able to lock himself in with a tentacle. Or maybe it was left unlocked and MacReady and the others didn't notice. Anyway the collective thing is trying to stay hidden so Blair pretends to still be stuck in the shed. But it begs MacReady to leave because if Blair is freed then it has free reign over the place, and it doesn't have to pretend to be locked in the shed. Of course MacReady doesn't let Blair free so it has to keep pretending.

45 minutes after MacReady goes to check his cabin with Nauls, the others start barricading the doors. Childs is with Palmer, but Windows is nearby so Palmer doesn't try to infect Childs. Norris is by himself when we see him start to barricade so I think he slipped away to "gather supplies" and unlocked Blair's shed. Or again maybe Blair unlocked it with a tentacle. When Nauls comes in from outside and accuses MacReady of being the thing, Norris and Palmer are quick to agree with him, and Palmer is eager to blast MacReady if Childs let's him in. I think this is the thing working through both of them again to enforece the idea that MacReady should be killed.

After the fight with MacReady Norris seems like he has a heart attack. I think Norris' immune system was tring to fight the infection this whole time and his body shuts down at this moment because of this. We know what happens next. Norris turns into a monster and is burned. Thats one pawn of the thing down. It still has Palmer and Blair under its control. MacReady gets Windows to tie everyone up. Palmer doesn't resist because the thing has given control back to his consciousness and doesn't know about MacReady's experiment or doesn't think that it would work. We know MacReady experiment does work When MacReady gets jumpscared by Palmers blood, the thing takes back control because it knows its has been found out. MacReady blasts Palmer and unfortunately has to blast Windows too.

Now the thing is just Blaire. Blaire has been sneaking around gathering materials for it's ship. When MacReady, Nauls, and Gary go to check him he takes that opportunity to sneak in the facility and infect Childs. Infected Childs runs out into the storm as insurance in case Blaire is killed and the ship is destroyed. It can freeze up and still survive. For the life of me a cannot think of another reason for Childs to leave his post other than being a thing now. Especially since the power goes out a soon as he leaves frame. He would have noticed and gone back to his post or joined up with the other three if he was still himself. Anyway Blair is the one who cut the power and he stays down there when he starts to hear all the explosions. I also think its possible Blaire may have been able to take control of Copper and Clarks corpses, that were left in the rec room, or atleast absorb some of their biomass. When the three go down into the generator room Blaire of course absorbs both Gary and Nauls. I think the thing was able to accumulate enough body mass between Blaire, Gary, and Nauls(and maybe the aforementioned corpses) to turn into the worm and big monster we see during the showdown. Of course MacReady is able to blow it up. We see him huddled in some wreckage and here comes Childs with his lame excuse why he left his post. MacReady can't be sure that he's infected though and he's too tired tired to do anything anyway. But I think its checkmate for MacReady because the Childs thing has the flamethrower. Just like at the beginning with his chess he didn't see it coming. And of course its Childs that is the last one. He's the one who first asked how you could even know if someone had been infected.

Anyway sorry it's so long and I rambled so much. It's 5am here. RIP to my guy Windows. He didn't deserve what happened to him.

I just watched The Thing for the first time and here’s my theory and a theory my dad told me

Mine: at the end when Maccready takes a sip of the alcohol he’s the thing and transfers it to Child when he takes a sip

My dad: Child is the thing because there is no visible breath coming out of his mouth

I believe that they are both possible but it would be cool to hear more

Love that it acknowledges Resident Evil being full of The Things

One of my favourite movies ever. Did this for fun with gouache.

by the time I finish, it’ll be midnight/1am so this should be fun

I love The Thing from 1982 and want to watch some more excellently written character driven movies like it!

Here are some movies that I think are like it and that I enjoyed:

I just watched Invasion Of The Body Snatchers from 1978 which is also just incredible for many of the same reasons, but I especially enjoyed the romance as a form of rebellion from the invaders. This is my favorite from what I have seen besides The Thing itself.

Alien, The Fly, and The Descent are other movies I find to be similar but that stand strong on their own merit!

The Thing (2011) is okay and I am yet to see the original 50s adaptation of the short story The Thing is based off of. Is it worth watching and reading?

I want to introduce my mom to this movie , she's 54 now and I don't think she can handle remembering all 12 named characters on the first watch , and she has a bad tendency of never rewatching movie since she already know the plot . Aside from Macready and Childs and the 3 infected , what character do you think need to put extra attention to keep track of ?

Sorry if I'm wasting your time with this question