How "The Thing" Inspired Me

Here's a little behind-the-scenes into the inspiration for my short story, Cursed. 

When my brother was little, he watched John Carpenter’s The Thing with my dad. (Why my dad let my brother watch this movie when he was so young, I have no idea.) When it was done, and my dad was taking my brother upstairs to go to bed, my brother kept pleading, “Please don’t eat me, Dad!” Then my brother slept on the floor of our older sister’s bedroom with his fake wooden gun. (To actually protect himself against one of aliens in The Thing, he would have needed a flame-thrower; but alas, we didn’t have one in the house.)

I’m fairly certain that had I watched The Thing when I was younger, it would have destroyed me too. However, when I finally saw it for the first time just last Halloween, I was fascinated. I can see why The Thing has withstood the test of time and is heralded as a masterclass in horror filmmaking.

Until last Halloween, I’d been wracking my brain to come up with a short story to serve as a precursor to Whisper. The Thing ended up being the inspiration I needed. The idea of an isolated group of people being hunted and infiltrated by a malicious threat capable of wearing anyone’s face, offered the opportunity to explain my magic system and introduce some key characters from Whisper.

And so, I wrote Cursed.

I loved the idea of taking the external threat of a curse, a mindless creature similar to the aliens in The Quiet Place with the ability to hide inside anyone, and combining it with the internal fear of making connections with other people. The result is a rather significant problem for the main character in Cursed, Nuss.

In the end, Nuss faces a question we all run up against: Who do you trust, if anyone?

So, I would like to thank John Carpenter for both giving me a reason to endlessly tease my brother and for the inspiration for Cursed.

Sorry Nuss, for all I put you through. 😊