The Thing

Different enough from the original that it feels pretty unique, and takes a bit of a different spin on a good story.

Glad they cast M E. W as the lead as she's just a great actress, and for me, this and Cloverfield Lane are some of her best performances in my opinion.

Graphics feel a little dated now, but there was only really one instance where it felt a little lower budget.

Only removing a few stars because I think there could have been a little more tension, and I wanted a more solid ending that what was offered.

A worthwhile watch which I wish kept me more on my toes, but delivered in great monster design and enough nods to the original without being a copy.

Initially I had thought this to be yet another of the countless Hollywood remakes, and I was thrilled to find out that it was not so. Being a prequel, this movie definitely had something to live up to, as Carpenter's original version is nothing short of a masterpiece.

This 2011 prequel actually did a good job, and I think it was a good addition to Carpenter's work.

What impressed me was the creature effects. The effects team really had managed to put together something unique here. And there was really a sense of something not-of-this-world about the grotesque shapes and abnormalities the creature assumed. And best of all was that the effects and make-up all looked so life-like and real.

The acting in the movie was good, and I think it was a really great touch that they had put together a mix of American, Danish and Norwegian actors/actresses. And the best part was that people actually did speak Danish and Norwegian, and not just English with a Scandinavian imitated accent, as you tend to see in American movies. So thumbs up on this detail.

As in the original Carpenter movie, they really had caught the feeling of isolation and paranoia in this 2011 movie as well. However, it was a shame that there really wasn't anything new or innovating to be told from the story here. It was a bit like they were just making soup off the broth Carpenter already used back in the day.

However, all in all, "The Thing" (2011) actually did entertain me thoroughly and I think it was a good enough prequel in its own way. Just don't expect something overly new here.

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.

This is a prequel/sequel/reboot/rework to John Carpenter's 1982 classic horror The Thing. There is the big reveal twisting the story to loop it around. They could have played with this a lot more than what they actually did. It's convoluted but I'm willing to buy it. In fact, it added something interesting. Not the same for the FX.

The aliens are now almost all CG. That's a big problem since the original had some of the most iconic real FX. It's a spit in the face for fans to replace it with CGI and it doesn't look good anyways. Going inside the saucer is a big mistake. This stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olsen, but nobody really stands out. This is a good idea but executed without understanding the appeal of the original.

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.