The Thing’s Kurt Russell Weighs in on Film’s Debated Ending

More than 40 years after it landed in theaters, John Carpenter’s The Thing remains a seminal experience in horror and sci-fi, while also being an experience whose ending is entirely ambiguous and has caused debates among fans. Namely, fans wonder if either Kurt Russell’s MacReady or Keith David’s Childs have been infected by the otherworldly creature, and while Russell isn’t outright revealing the answer, he recently addressed what his motivations were for the project and the conversations he had with Carpenter about the cryptic finale. While knowing the “answer” of the ending doesn’t change the effectiveness of the adventure, fans have remained curious about the opinions of the cast and crew regarding those final scenes.

“We talked about that, the ending of that movie, John and I, for a long, long time. We’d trade ideas for the end, write it out, and it was one of those things where John was concerned about it, doing a movie that you would see, for two hours plus, and bring you back to square one,” Russell recently shared during a conversation hosted by the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “We finally got to a point where, we’d try different things, and I just remember finally saying, ‘How about this one?’ and we’d try it, and I said, ‘John, I think this comes back to square one. I think that’s what it does.’ The only thing I could do was finish it with, ‘Why don’t we just sit here for a while and see what happens.’ It worked. It was the thing that it called for.”

He added, “It’s fun to hear people talk about that one, I must say, that’s a fun one.”

Carpenter’s The Thing, which is the second adaptation of John W. Campbell’s novella Who Goes There? after 1951’s The Thing from Another World, focuses on a group of researchers in Antarctica who accidentally unleash a replicating creature from the ice. In the film’s finale, only two characters have survived, with each of them paranoid about if the other is actually an intruder.

Some theories claim that reflections of lights in the characters’ eyes confirm who the Thing really is, with cinematographer Dean Cundey previously spreading that notion. Carpenter himself, however, doesn’t buy into that notion.

When ComicBook.com asked about the validity of Cundey’s remarks earlier this year, Carpenter clarified, “He has no clue.” When pushed about whether there was a definitive answer or if it was intentionally ambiguous, Carpenter confirmed, “Yes, I know. I know who’s the Thing and who’s not in the very end.”

As far as whether he would reveal that answer, the filmmaker teased, “Nope … Cannot tell you. Sorry.”

Blumhouse is reportedly developing a new adaptation of Who Goes There?.

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