The Thing

Prequel, sequel or whatever they want to call it, the most positive comment I can give to "The Thing" is that it sparked my desire to re-watch John Carpenter's 1982 original and perhaps even the almighty 1951 pioneer classic "The Thing from another World", just so I can spot the little connections and audit if everything – in fact - interweaves nicely together. I've read quite a lot of harsh and severely impolite reviews on this film, but personally I must say I enjoyed it very much. Admittedly, however, I might be a bit prejudiced one two specific levels, namely a) I do not worship the Carpenter milestone like many fellow genre lovers do. It's a terrific and very influential classic, of course, but I don't consider it sacred and wouldn't rank it in my personal top 10 or so. And b) I'm a Belgian who spends a lot of time in The Netherlands. What does that have to do with anything, I hear you say? Well, not much indeed, except for the fact that "The Thing" was the directorial debut of Dutch filmmaker Matthijs Van Heijningen Jr., and if you'd know how many Belgian and/or Dutch directors aspire to build up careers in Hollywood, yet how very few of them ever even come close, this is praiseworthy to say the least. Van Heijningen literally came out of nowhere and all of a sudden now directs a relatively large-budgeted Sci-Fi horror flick with a massive reputation and a cast full of fairly famous faces. His father may have earned quite some money producing famous Dutch flicks, but this is nevertheless an impressive and respectable accomplishment.

"The Thing" 2011 is a fast-paced and visually astonishing, albeit unsurprising Sci-Fi/horror shocker. I state unsurprising because the film follows the exact same narrative structure and introduces very similar characters as in John Carpenter's original, which makes this nonetheless some kind of crossover between a prequel and a remake. Norwegian expedition members stumble upon a gigantic spacecraft underneath the thick ice of Antarctica and even discover a deep-frozen alien specimen within the same perimeter. Expedition leader Dr. Halvorson recruits American paleontologist Kate Lloyd to investigate the remains, but he clearly has a hidden agenda and wants to keep the discovery as confidential as possible for reasons of profitability. Whilst under observation, the alien naturally thaws and promptly goes on an unstoppable annihilation rampage thanks to his unique ability to duplicate the people it already killed. The one essential aspect this version lacks is undoubtedly the atmosphere of paranoia and hostility. Once the alien's hunting methods are known, there's general distrust and fear between the characters that isn't illustrated as tense as in Carpenter's film. There's a sequence in which Dr. Lloyd demands that everyone opens their mouth to check if they have teeth fillings, simply because the alien is unable to reproduce artificial body corrections. This particular sequence is a bit suspenseful, but simultaneously overlong and somewhat silly, because – like one of the group members righteously remarks – people suddenly can get banned from the circle "because they floss". On a more positive note "The Thing" definitely outshines the vast majority of other horror releases nowadays, thanks to the presence of authentic characters instead of irritating genre stereotypes... Of course, it would have been quite impossible to cast scantily clad babes and dim-witted jocks as arctic explorers... Also, the 1982 film may have benefited tremendously from Ennio Morricone's musical guidance, but Marco Beltrami provides a new score that is nearly as intense. But the biggest trump of "The Thing", and probably the main reason to grant it at least one viewing, is the gore. Even though all the special effects and make-up is computer engineered, Van Heijningen Jr. and his crew succeeded in making the special effects look as raw and disturbing as in the original. There are multiple gory highlights, for example the forming of the notorious two-headed creature, that will appeal to horror freaks of ALL generations; younger ones as well as skeptical John Carpenter groupies.

It's hard for anything to compare to John Carpenter's The Thing. It's one of the greatest horror films ever made, some would argue *the* best. Thankfully, they didn't go the remake route here and instead opted for a prequel that depicted the events that happened in the Norwegian camp prior to the '82 version. In that regard, this movie does an impressive job at tying some knots like showing how the two-faced thing came to be, as well as the origin of the dog from the start of Carpenter's Thing. Sadly, that's where most of the praise ends.

The Thing suffers from what plagues many horror movies these days - underwritten characters and overwhelming CGI. One of the scariest things of Carpenter's version is the practical effects of the "thing". They were horrifying. Here, all subtlety is thrown out the window in favor of huge CGI monsters. It's effectively used in a couple scenes, but the monsters lose their scariness after a while and it just becomes gratuitous. The characters themselves are paper thin. What helped make the '82 version so fantastic is that we got to know the characters, their quirks, their personalities, and we were able to empathize with their situations. In this movie, half of the characters are interchangeable. I didn't even know most of their names. And worse yet, I didn't care about any of them. There's one particular scene that calls back to Carpenter's infamous blood test scene where I realized that most of these people are really dumb and I don't care if any of them die. That's not good in a horror movie. By that point it was just a waiting game for them to get picked off one by one.

The lead performances are strong. For the material they were given, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton do a fine job. But that simply isn't enough to carry a movie like this. The Thing is supposed to be scary, and for the most part, it isn't. That's a failure by horror standards. There's some face-value entertainment to be had here, but if you're looking for a substantial prequel to Carpenter's masterpiece, you'll be sorely disappointed.

In 1982, the Norwegian Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) invites the paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to join his team in his research in the Artic. On the arrival, she learns that they have discovered a spacecraft deep below in the ice. They find a frozen alien life form nearby and they bring to their facility for research. Out of the blue, the alien revives and attack the scientists, contaminating them and assuming the shape of his victim. Kate finds means to identify the creature, but maybe it is too late to save the team members.

In 1982, the master John Carpenter remade the 1951 "The Thing from Another World" ans his movie has become a masterpiece. The story of a shape-shifting alien that can assume any human form is tense, supported by a claustrophobic and depressing scenario, paranoid characters with Kurt Russell in the top of his successful career, haunting music score by Ennio Morricone and John Carpenter's top-notch direction.

This remake disguised in prequel is not totally bad, but follows the format of the present Hollywood movies, supported by special effects but without the atmosphere and the psychological horror of the 1982 movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Enigma do Outro Mundo" ("The Enigma of Another World")

You're stationed at an isolated outpost in Antarctica when you inadvertently discover a flying saucer type spacecraft beneath the frozen surface. Not long after you discover the alien pilot, trapped inside the ice sheet, looks like he may have been there for some time. Unfortunately, after recovering the entombed alien the protocols of containment are soon dispatched to a nearby bin and, before you know it, a rather excitable shapeshifting beast, who likes to take the form of bodies that have been turned inside out, and various other parts that should be internal and not external, is causing chaos and carnage and mayhem and disaster.

While not as good as the 1981 take, it is still a spectacular piece of masterful horror that continually delivers upon each subsequent viewing and provides some depth to the John Carpenter thriller.

I didn't go see The Thing in 2011 for two reasons. One, I was reluctant to support a prequel when what I had really wanted for thirty years was a sequel. Two, the movie seemed to have vanished from the theaters only after a few weeks. In the meantime, I only heard negative things(no pun intended) about this film so I didn't feel like I was missing out.

However, something really weird happened when I finally caught it on HBO. I liked it! No, I mean I really liked it. To be clear, the criticisms about it being an unnecessary and almost too similar story to John Carpenter's classic are all fair. And, like most sic-fi movies today, there is more cgi than I would care to see. But the people making this movie clearly worship Carpenter's movie every bit as much as any die hard Thing fan. They go to great lengths to match up to the events suggested from the 1982 version and I personally appreciate them doing so. I also liked their method of detecting who was the Thing. It was different than MacReady's test but it was original.(Nothing will ever top the petri dish sequence and dialogue, Carpenter and Russell just nail it).

If you're a fan of the original looking for something completely different or a "new take" on The Thing From Another world, than this movie is not for you. But if you're like me, and always wondered who put that ax through the door or what events led up to the two-headed thing burnt up in the snow at the Norwegion compound than I highly recommend this flick.