Classic Scene - The Thing (1982)
"I know you gentlemen have been through a lot..."
Director John Carpenter
Starring Kurt Russell, A Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Donald Moffat, T.K. Carter, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, Thomas Waites
Screenplay Bill Lancaster
In Short Antarctica, 1982. A team of American scientists are infiltrated by an alien being that crash-landed on Earth 100,000 years ago. As both the shape-shifting beast and rampant paranoia threaten to tear the group apart, chopper pilot RJ MacReady takes charge of the situation…
Having slain Norris (Charles Hallahan) and Clark (Richard Masur), MacReady (Kurt Russell) orders Windows (Thomas Waites) to tie the surviving men down. He cuts the covering off an electrical cord.
MacReady: We’re going to draw a little bit of everybody’s blood. We’re gong to find out who is The Thing. Watching Norris in there gave me the idea that maybe every part of him was a whole - every little piece, an individual animal. When a man bleeds, it’s just tissue. Blood from one of you Things won’t obey. It’s a newly-formed individual with a built-in desire to protect its own life. When attacked, your blood will try and survive - and crawl away from a hot needle, say.
Windows collects a portion of Nauls’ blood in a petri dish. He sets the dish next to the other plates he has collected. Windows cuts his thumb.
MacReady: Slide it back here.
Windows pushes it towards MacReady.
MacReady: That’s good. Now move back, over there.
MacReady heats the wire and plunges it into the blood. Windows is human.
MacReady: I guess you’re okay. [Points to a flamethrower] Put that on and watch them. Now I’ll show you what I already know.
MacReady heats the wire and puts it in his dish. He too is still a man.
Childs [Keith David]: This is a crock of shit…
MacReady: We’ll see. Let’s try the Doc and Clark.
He heats the wire and plunges it into Copper’s dish. It’s benign.
MacReady: Now Clark.
Clark’s test also comes back clean.
Childs: Then Clark was human, huh? Which makes you a murderer, don’t it?
MacReady: [Ignoring Childs] Palmer now.
MacReady sets Palmer’s dish in front of him and heats the wire.
Garry [Donald Moffatt]: This is pure nonsense. This won’t prove a damn thing.
MacReady: Thought you’d feel that way, Garry. You were the only one who could’ve gotten to that blood [bank]. We’ll do you last…
The blood in Palmer’s dish leaps up in the air with a squeal. Palmer begins to transform. The men scream hysterically. Childs and Garry try to escape their bonds. The Palmer Thing breaks free and leaps on Windows. MacReady fries Palmer, who bursts through a wall and runs outside. MacReady pursues him, eventually slaying Palmer with a stick of dynamite. He then re-enters the building and immolates Windows before continuing the blood tests. To his relief, Nauls is still human.
Childs: [To MacReady} Let’s do it.
Childs’s test is conducted. He too has yet to transform.
Childs: [Realising he is still tied to the untested Garry] Get me- get me out of here! Cut me loose, damn it! Cut me loose!
Nauls cuts him free. Garry readies himself for his test. It is benign. The group breathes a collective sigh of relief.
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I’d rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!!