Note: it is unclear who was to credit for creating The Thing as while Jerad S Marantz provided a few concept art pieces, Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis produced technical drawings and sculpted the models to make the props and costumes. So I will credit all three.
When I first saw Rick Owen's Cyclops collection I didn't think much of it, until I saw a model with what looked like a human hand protruding from somewhere around her knee, as she got closer I saw that the hand was more and more realistic and it shocked me, bringing the 2011 film The Thing back to me and that horrifying creature that consisted of the bodies of two men fused together by an alien host. The link in my mind was in interesting one, as by first appearances the models and the creature seem clearly linked, but their purposes and ideas behind them couldn’t contrast more.
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| Rick Owen's cyclops collection |
Rick Owen's idea behind the show was about sisterhood, supporting other women in a display of strength and unity, whereas 'The Thing' was made purely to shock and scare it's audience. However, if you remove the contexts behind these works, they seem similar, both play on organic forms and what we recognize as human. Owens used two models in different positions to create new shapes, letting limbs extend at odd angles from positions they clearly shouldn’t be in until you could understand that the forms were created from two models.
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| The models on the right show a near perfect correlation with The Thing where another set of arms hang limply by the models sides appearing too long yet still in proportion. |
This is why the first model scared me, she had her partner on her back obscured completely apart from one arm flopping by her knees in an unconscious or even dead manner. It wasn’t meant to be there and there was no evidence or reasoning of why it should be there, it was quite unnerving. As the model drew closer I could see that it was a real arm but still couldn’t see any owner, it was the movement of the arm as the model walked that stuck in my head, it was just so real, because it was.
Once I understood the situation it lost its fear factor, but for that brief moment, I was actually scared because I couldn’t understand. Fear is built on what we don’t understand, so common effects you'll find in the horror genre are: lack of visibility (most common by poor lighting) fast movements and insane detail. The Thing makes use of all of these, especially the detail, if something has too much detail it is hard to take in quickly, you cant understand it. Alien is an excellent example of this, H R Giger's design is rich in detail, depth and is all black so its very hard to make out with the confusing textures and inorganic silhouette, making it utterly terrifying. Details in The Thing are usually stretched skin, sink holes in the flesh and crustacean style growths. The crustacean element is the most effective because it so blatantly doesn’t belong, its not right and it should not be there.
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| Edvard thing concept art by Marantz |
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| The Juliette Thing by Gillis and Woodruff, I love how they kept this character feminine with her beautifully smooth legs, also note her face in the top picture, she is helpless and she knows it, she is nothing but a passenger or a vessel for this all consuming parasite. |
The Thing of 2011 was a prequel to the events of The Thing of 1982 which in itself was based off John W. Campbell's novel Who Goes There? The Thing is set in a Norwegian research facility in the arctic, when they find an alien encased in an ice block (imaginatively called the 'ice block alien' by the production team) of course it escapes and starts killing off the team. What's intriguing about this alien is that it works to mimic its prey perfectly by assimilation, once found out it morphs into a mess of different animal parts as a near unstoppable killing force. The question is, which one of us is infected?
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| Edvard-Adam thing film screenshot |
Jerad s Marantz provided concept art for the thing but story boards, key frames, and alien designs were provided by Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis. They worked with the Aron Sims Company to create hyper realistic puppets of assimilation. Casts were taken of the actors and accurate recreations were made of them, of course, these were made into the puppets deformed by anatomical mutilation. The puppets had extra limbs, parts removed, features added, stretched or melting appearances to convey the brutality of this monster. The monster I will be focusing on is the Edvard-Adam thing.
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| Edvard Adam sculpture ready for casting
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| Edvard thing film screenshot, note the now stump arms and new appendages where they shouldn't be. |
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| Edvard thing fusing with Adam, film poster |
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| Filming the Edvard Adam puppet, as you can see, the physical legs were controlled by sticks operated by a puppeteer and later edited out. the faces were animatronic but were enhanced in post production, larger or more complicated legs were completely computer generated. |
This monstrosity was created when Edvard reveals that he is infected with the alien and attacks Adam, not killing him. By this time Edvard is no more than a torso with both arms now stumps and suspended as new legs grow out of him and he becomes a crawling spider form. In possibly one of the most terrifying scenes (apart from the arm centipede) the alien forces Edvard's face towards Adam and fuses it to him. The two men fuse and become a mass of convulsing flesh, alien appendages and the iconic conjoined, and still screaming, heads.
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| The Griggs thing by Woodruff and Gillis |
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| Concept art for the Griggs thing by Marantz |
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| Concept art for the pilot thing |
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| Original concept art by Marantz |
And this is where the differences are, the two men are in complete fear for their lives and reject the alien as much as they can despite the fact that they are helpless against it. While Owen's models voluntarily carry each other as an act of strength and display of support and love. There is nothing horrific about the idea behind Owen's show and so there should be no element of fear when you watch it, however, it still took me by surprise.
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| Rick Owen's cyclops collection |
Owens said in an interview 'I was using the idea of grace under pressure as a motif' and to a degree that was the purpose of Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis's work, if you replace pressure with similar feelings of fear and a need for escape. The monsters are disturbingly beautiful, in a wrong and horrific way, they are intriguing and that’s why I love it. The collection plays on ideas of support and freedom though clearly shows scenes of discomfort and restraint, the models are strapped together as if unwillingly. The models are in fact contortionists and gymnasts with big powerful thighs, so appear very heavy compared to your average, lanky catwalk model. Some models are carried upside down with their heads as the lowest point and you can see the blood collecting in their face and ears, this cannot be comfortable in the slightest.
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| Michele Lamy |
Michele Lamy is famous for being married to Rick Owens and for being his muse. She is recognized as a fashion eccentric and looks to more of the darker elements of superstition, such as vampirism, dark magic and even considers herself as a gothic priestess. She loves rare materials, customized and unique items, with a passion for the small details and lots of them. Her fingers are covered in big bulky rings each with their own designs and details, while her wrists and ears are littered with further adornments. There is so much gold on this woman, even her teeth are gold-plated. As Owens remarks 'She likes the complexity and eccentricity of working with artisans' he clearly loves her for her unique personality and admires her style and patience.
'As a sorceress, Michèle looks at the occult as a part of our humanity, she has a collection of voodoo masks and pieces of anthropological artefacts that she finds alluring' . Lamy has given out the impression and even directly said that she is a number of things including an arms dealer, a vampire, a witch and that she’s 1600 years old. Lamy uses a lot of dark colours, wearing an Egyptian Nemes (Klaft), wearing little colour and even painting her fingertips black. Owen's collections mainly feature black or very little colour. She works with Owens as a business partner, taking his ideas and constructing them into form for their furniture collection.
