If you've seen the notorious severed ear sequence in "Reservoir Dogs", you're well aware of Quentin Tarantino's twisted imagination.
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00:00If you've seen the notorious severed ear sequence in Reservoir Dogs, you're well aware of Quentin
00:05Tarantino's twisted imagination.
00:07Hey, what's going on?
00:10You hear that?
00:13If that doesn't convince you, recall the gimp scene in Pulp Fiction, or the poisoned coffee
00:18scenario in The Hateful Eight.
00:20Keeping such movie moments in mind, it really makes you wonder if the renowned director
00:24is capable of being shocked or scared himself when he's at the movies.
00:28Director Quentin Tarantino answered that question when he stopped by The Late Show
00:32with Stephen Colbert for a chat about the novelization of his 2019 movie, Once Upon
00:37a Time in Hollywood.
00:38Here I come, here I come.
00:42During the interview, Colbert asked about his favorite adaptations and brought up who
00:46goes there.
00:47The 1938 short story, written by John W. Campbell Jr., centers on a group of researchers at an
00:53Antarctic outpost trapped with an unearthly, shape-shifting monster who can imitate any
00:58organic thing it consumes.
01:00Sound a little familiar?
01:01The tale would later get an Atomic Age translation to the big screen with 1951's The Thing from
01:06Another World.
01:08In 1982, Halloween director John Carpenter revisited Campbell's story with The Thing,
01:13which stars frequent Tarantino collaborator Kurt Russell and an all-male ensemble cast.
01:18Back off.
01:21Way off.
01:22Despite being initially panned by critics, The Thing has since gained new life and is
01:27now regarded as one of the scariest, most beloved, and influential movies ever, leaving
01:32its creative mark on directors ranging from Guillermo del Toro to J.J. Abrams to Tarantino
01:37himself.
01:38Both adaptations are appreciated, but it's the latter film that Colbert and his guest
01:42gush over.
01:43Tarantino has especially high praise for the film's claustrophobic atmosphere and Rob
01:48Botten's groundbreaking practical effects, two elements that work together to truly bring
01:53him into the terrifying world that Carpenter was able to create.
01:56I don't get scared in horror movies.
01:58I respond to suspense.
02:00I respond to that.
02:02The Thing, I got scared in."
02:04From the beginning of his career, Tarantino has courted controversy for the ultra-violence
02:09and charged language in his films.
02:11Not much can throw him off guard, so why does The Thing get under his skin?
02:16After some self-reflection, he landed on a reason for his attraction to the sci-fi classic.
02:21For Tarantino, the contained setting, filled with suspects who have no way of truly trusting
02:25each other, is what stirred him.
02:27He said during the interview,
02:28The movie makes the paranoia of that so palpable, so real.
02:34It's almost like another character in the movie, just the sheer paranoia.
02:39That paranoia, he observes, has nowhere to go but beyond the screen and out into the
02:44audience.
02:45Great.
02:46Tarantino went on to reveal that he consciously infused the screenplay of his debut feature,
02:51Reservoir Dogs, with the paranoia of The Thing.
02:54In Reservoir Dogs, a group of diamond thieves holes up in a warehouse after a heist goes
02:59bad.
03:00With no one knowing anyone's true identity, the tense atmosphere is similar to that of
03:03The Thing.
03:05As R.J.
03:06McCready laments,
03:07Nobody trusts anybody now, and we're all very tired.
03:13Likewise, Tarantino kept that friction in mind while penning his script.
03:17He told Colbert,
03:18I need to trap these bastards, I need to trap them in this warehouse, and no one can trust
03:25anybody else.
03:26The aim was to get the simmering tension of Carpenter's Classic to manifest through the
03:31grungy walls of the empty warehouse, where the various thieves try to determine whose
03:35secret disloyalty brought down the planned heist.
03:38It definitely paid off, as the third-act standoff scene speaks for itself.
03:42Tarantino has a knack for tense armed negotiations, and he has included variations on the standoff
03:48scene in a handful of his subsequent movies, including the infamous underground pub scenario
03:52in Inglourious Basterds.
03:57Despite coming close by writing the vampire crime action thriller From Dusk Till Dawn
04:02and sneaking in a horror-adjacent Manson Family sequence in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
04:07Tarantino has yet to make a real horror picture.
04:10Last we heard, Blumhouse is working on a resurrection of The Thing, with Carpenter's tentative involvement.
04:15Still, we can only imagine how Tarantino might handle Who Goes There, if given the opportunity.