Palmer: I was wonderin' when El Capitan was gonna get a chance to use his popgun.
Childs: How will we make it? MacReady: Maybe we shouldn't.
MacReady: Trust is a tough thing to come by these days.
Clark: I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off whatever it is.
MacReady: I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It'll fight if it has to, but it's vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won.
Trivia:
Donald Pleasence was the original choice for the character of Blair. Pleasence was unable to perform the role due to a scheduling conflict.
There are no female characters in the film. The only female presence in the movie is in the voice of MacReady's chess computer and the contestants seen on the game show that Palmer watches. A scene containing a blow-up doll was filmed and then left on the cutting room floor. Additionally, one of the crew was a woman but she fell ill during the outdoor shoot and was replaced with a man.
In the scene where Norris' (Charles Hallahan) head separates from his body, special-FX designer Rob Bottin used highly inflammable materials for the construction of interior of the head and neck models. During the shoot John Carpenter decided that, for continuity reasons, they needed some flames around the scene. Without thinking they lit a fire bar and the whole room, which by now was filled with inflammable gasses, caught fire. Nobody got hurt, but the entire special effects model, on which Bottin had worked several months, was destroyed.
At the beginning of the film the Norwegian with the rifle screams in Norwegian: "Stop, get the hell away! It's not a dog - it's just an imitation of a dog, it's a kind of thing. It imitates. Get the hell away from the dog you fucking idiots!"
To give the illusion of icy Antarctic conditions, interior sets on the Los Angeles sound stages were refrigerated down to 40°F while it hovered around 90°F outside.
DVD Easter Eggs: (Hidden So You Don't See Anything You Don't Want To See)
Edition: Universal Collectors Edition
Region: 1
Description: Hidden Music Score
Go to the Bonus Materials from the main menu and there select the Terror Takes Shape documentary. Go to Language Selection and you will find an menu called Music Score. It's the entire music score for the film.
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