8 Obscure Background Movie Clues That Explained Everything

7. The Alien Is The One With No Visible Breath - The Thing

There were several endings of John Carpenter's The Thing shot, including a happy (Kurt Russell's MacReady gets off Antarctica and is found free of the titular alien parasite) and depressing (the shapeshifting monster escapes the central camp in the form of the dog) conclusion, with the director eventually plumping for something in the middle that's painfully ambiguous.

At the end, MacReady seemingly kills the alien and collapses exhausted amongst the burning base before Childs, presumed dead earlier, pops up and shares a drink with the helicopter pilot. There's a whole bevy of evidence that Childs is or isn't the Thing - his coat is different, which is symbolically duplicitous and suggests his old one was torn up during a transformation - but the real solution is so simple you'll kick yourself for wasting all that time watching rambling YouTube explanations; it's the breath.

In the final scene you can clearly sees MacReady's breath steaming in the cold. But Childs? Not a whisp. We don't know every specific feature of the creature, but we know it can survive extreme cold and is thus unlikely to produce any water vapour. Unwittingly taking the (for all he knows contaminated) whiskey bottle for a swig is just the icing on the cake.