Episode 160: The Way of All Flesh: On John Carpenter's 'The Thing'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 10:30:00 -0500

As a horror movie, John Carpenter's The Thing seems to have it all: amazing practical effects, body horror, psychological drama, Kurt Russell ... Indeed, there is only one element this movie lacks, and that is anything at all corresponding to the titular villain. There is no thing in The Thing! What we have instead is a process, a pattern, a way for which the term "thing" is as good as any other. (What is a thing anyway?) In this episode, Phil and JF, having decided that Carpenter's film qualifies as a Christmas movie because there is snow (and a dog) in it, explore the metaphysical implications of a cult classic.

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REFERENCES

John Carpenter, The Thing
Weird Studies, Episode 100 on Carpenter Films
Weird Studies, Episode 157 on Videodrome
Ridley Scott, Blade Runner
Ridley Scott Alien
Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence
Haecceity
Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Characters as a Medium for Poetry
Weird Studies, Episode 89 on ‘Mumbo Jumbo’
Weird Studies, Episode 127 on ‘The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity’
Wikipedia, “Quiddity”
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish painter
Jez Conolly, The Thing
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
Dylan Trigg, The Thing a Phenomenology of Horror
Plato, The Timaeus
Lucretius, “On the Nature of Things”
Clive Barker, The Great and Secret Show

Episode 100: The Price of Beauty is Horror: On the Films of John Carpenter

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:30:00 -0400

Central to the tradition of cosmic horror is the suggestion that the ultimate truth about our universe is at once knowable and unthinkable, such that one learns it only at the cost of one's sanity and soul. John Carpenter is one of a handful of horror directors to have successfully ported this idea from literature to cinema. This episode is an attempt to unearth some of the eldritch symbols buried in a selection of Carpenter's apocalyptic works, including Escape from New York, The Thing, They Live,_ In the Mouth of Madness_, and the little known Cigarette Burns.

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REFERENCES

John Carpenter films discussed:
The Thing
Cigarette Burns
In the Mouth of Madness
Prince of Darkness
Halloween
They Live
Escape from New York
Escape from L.A.
Big Trouble in Little China

Other References:

Pascal Laugier (dir.), Martyrs
Srdjan Spasojevic (dir.), A Serbian Film
Weird Studies, Episode 90 on The Owl in Daylight
Roger Corman, American director
Northrup Frye, Words with Power
J. R. R. Tolkien, forward to The Fellowship of the Ring
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri, “Percept, Affect, and Concept” in What is Philosophy
Weird Studies, Episode 72 on the Castrati
Weird Studies, Episode 46, Thomas Ligotti’s Angel
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”
China Mieville, British author
Karlheinz Stockhausen, comments on 9/11
H. P. Lovecraft, Nyarlothotep
H. P. Lovecraft, “The Haunter of the Dark”
Nick Land, Fanged Noumena
Zack Snyder, American director
Haeccaity and Quiddity, philosophical concepts
Samuel Delaney, Dahlgren
Weird Studies, Episode 98 on Exotica
Quentin Meillasoux, After Finitude
Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

Weird Studies - Episodes Tagged with “John Carpenter”

Episode 160: The Way of All Flesh: On John Carpenter's 'The Thing'

Episode 100: The Price of Beauty is Horror: On the Films of John Carpenter