10 Horror Movies That Unbelievably Cut What We Wanted To See
5. Nauls' Death - The Thing
As tight and exquisitely crafted as John Carpenter's The Thing is, fans have been left hanging for the better part of four decades regarding the fate of the Antarctic research station's cook Nauls (T. K. Carter).
In the film's climax, Nauls just... disappears. He wanders off, and though the audience is left to assume that he was probably killed by the monstrous Blair-Thing, this is never categorically confirmed in the film itself.
This wasn't merely a case of Carpenter trying to be ambiguous or even getting sloppy, though: he did indeed originally plan for a grisly sequence in which Nauls' fate is made explicitly, horrifyingly clear.
As scripted and storyboarded, Nauls would've been attacked and assimilated by the Blair-Thing, with tentacles bursting out of his body as MacReady (Kurt Russell) helplessly watches in horror.
It would've evidently been one of the most ambitious and complex effects sequences in the entire movie, but due to time and budgetary constraints the scene wasn't ever produced. What a shame.