An early episode of The X-Files is almost a carbon copy of John Carpenter’s The Thing

One of the first episodes of The X-Files – season 1, episode 8, “Ice” – was a sly remake of John Carpenter’s sci-fi horror masterpiece The thing. A lot of The X-FilesThe classic “Monster of the Week” standalone episodes were influenced by iconic horror films. Season 4 Episode 2, “Home,” is a horror about a murderous family inspired by The hills have eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Season 6, Episode 7, “Terms of Endearment,” subverts the story of Rosemary’s Baby with the story of a demon snatching an unborn child from its mother’s womb.

The series’ premise of two agents working in the FBI’s underground supernatural affairs division gave the writers the freedom to explore every horror trope and subgenre out there. The X-Files even made an episode parodying Police with a werewolf on the loose: Season 7, Episode 12, “X-Cops.” The X-Files was taking inspiration from horror cinema from the beginning. In just its first season, the show featured a stealth remake of The thingcomplete with a snowy research facility and a parasitic alien entity.

‘Ice’ from the first season of The X-Files is very close to John Carpenter’s The Thing

Both are about an alien parasite that infiltrates a snow-bound research facility.

“Ice” shows Mulder and Scully heading to a cold research facility in Alaska to investigate the mysterious deaths of its inhabitants. When inspecting the isolated installation, They are shocked to learn that it is home to an alien parasite that sends its hosts into fits of rage. This is very similar to 1982 The thingin which a team of American researchers at an isolated facility in Antarctica fall victim to an alien parasite that wants to assimilate them. The episode even seems The thingbecause it shares the same production designer, Graeme Murray.

Carpenter’s film was a remake of Christian Nyby’s 1951 film Something from another worldwhich was itself an adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novel Who goes there?. It is possible that the character Campbell in “Ice” was named after the author. On the DVD bonus features for The X-Files season 1, series creator Chris Carter acknowledged the influence of The thing in “Ice”. He noted that the episode was “inspired by The Thing,” although writers Glen Morgan and James Wong wanted to avoid the comparisons.

How The X-Files changes the premise of the thing

The X-Files parasite has different intentions than the thing

The main difference between The X-Files‘Episode “Ice” and The thing These are the parasite’s intentions towards the people it infects. In The thingthe alien entity wants to assimilate everyone in its path (and scientists determine that if it were released, it could assimilate the entire human population with alarming speed); in “Ice”, the parasite drives its victims into a fit of uncontrollable rage. In this sense, it is more like the virus in George A. Romero’s book The crazy ones than the entity of The thing.