Why John Carpenter’s Film, The Thing, reminds me of my Klingdong by Klingon Vanna White
The Thing. 1982
This movie is over 30 years old. Warning about spoilers makes me feel silly so suck it if you’re one of those people who needs a spoiler alert for a 30 year old movie. Suck it hard and fast but do me a favor and pull your lips over your teeth.
The film starts off with an alien space craft crashing in the Antarctic. Then there’s a helicopter chasing a dog and shooting at it. You’re all WTF you sadistic fucking assholes! It lands by an American Research facility and all the Scientists are watching the dog run to them for safety. Weirdly the people in the helicopter turn out to be Norwegians and not Sarah Palin and her family. Sadly they are just as difficult to understand with their Norwegian language and bizarre behavior. They spill out of the helicopter acting like insane buffoons. One explodes himself with a grenade, the other gets shot by a dog lover. The dog is safe! Victory?
The dog is put with the other sled dogs and mutates because it’s actually a shape shifting alien and NOT humankind’s best friend. The worst alien ever.
Actor Richard Dysart plays an American Scientist doctor with a nose ring. I never noticed that until I watched it in High Def. I had to research it because it was just so weird. It seems he decided that his scientist character would be a 50 year old with a nose ring. I think that’s hilarious because all the scientists I know look like normal people but have really fucked up kinky sex lives. They’re managing so many interpersonal relationships they don’t have time to pierce their faces. Besides, they want their kink to be a surprise. Like the time I opened up a garbage can and found a live racoon inside!
Well anyhoo a lot of guys get killed in this movie. I think there's only one black guy. In fact there are only male actors in this film with the exception of Adrienne Barbeau as an uncredited computer voice. Normally that would piss me off, but when you consider how many women get killed in a sexually voyeuristic way in horror, it’s actually quite refreshing even for today. A monster gets loose in the sausage factory and much paranoia and gross out moments ensue. You get to see the monster in great and glorious detail too.
So this guy gets killed and decapitated and most of him gets burned except for his head that sprouts legs and skitters away. I think the term “Kill it with Fire” was inspired by The Thing. Except you have to get all the pieces. That’s really fucking important. You can’t just let the head fall off a desk and roll away just because you’re distracted by the whole gross scene and it reminds me of the time my Klingdong escaped in a venue when I was Co-MCing a horror burlesque show with my best friend and buddy Odessa Lil.
I have Klingon Genitalia that is both an orifice and multi appendaged appendage. That night I got distracted by an extremely messy Elizabeth Bathory Burlesqe Act. My Klingdong detached and got loose wearing only a speedo. I hadn’t done laundry in a while so a speedo was all I had left for underwear that night. I appreciate the grip of the speedo’s superior spandex. But they’re kind of expensive to wear everyday as underwear.
But just a warning, should you ever come in contact with my Klingdong, do NOT look into it’s unblinking all-seeing eye. It challenges it and I cannot control or protect you from the thrashing you will endure at the many appendaged flangies of my disembodied Klingdong. You have been warned.
But back to The Thing, Kurt Russell plays a Yosemite Sam Character, if Yosemite Sam was as hot as Kurt Russell. Frankly it seems that many of the actors were given free license to wear whatever the fuck they wanted as part of their “character” development and it’s a bit distracting. But this was released in 1982 and considering the fashion then it could have been worse. If you never thought Yosemite Sam could be a sex symbol you haven’t seen Kurt Russell in his Yosemite Sam Cosplay. Don’t take my word for it. Watch The Thing. It has some serious gross out moments that will make you feel like you walked into the wrong dressing room at the wrong show.
Oh and the 2011 prequel is pretty solid too.
