John Carpenter on The Thing (1982 film)

“People hated it. It was HATED. Especially by the horror fans. I thought that was the best film I’d made but everybody dumped on it”

“It is annually the film of choice for the scientists arriving on the first night at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on June 2 (they end their stay by watching The Shining, perhaps when the madness has set in) and inspired a short story by Canadian writer Peter Watts that recasts the events of the film from the point of view of the Thing itself, struggling to understand why it is receiving such hostility.”

“[Morricone] did all the orchestrations and recorded for me 20 minutes of music I could use wherever I wished but without seeing any footage. I cut his music into the film and realized that there were places, mostly scenes of tension, in which his music would not work... I secretly ran off and recorded in a couple of days a few pieces to use. My pieces were very simple electronic pieces – it was almost tones. It was not really music at all but just background sounds, something today you might even consider as sound effects.”