O Enigma de Outro Mundo

First off, I will have to make a disclaimer: I love the 1982 John Carpenter's "The Thing". That being said, this review will try to be fair. Hopefully.

First off, "The Thing" is a prequel. I always have a fascination of prequels because they have a unique approach to writing in that the events must lead up logically to a movie already made rather than taking the idea of the first movie and going in different directions with it. This creates a lot of confinement and there have been some really cool prequels that, even in this confinement, still feel fresh and take whatever franchise into a new direction (case in point, From Dusk Til Dawn 3). So already, this movie has both a reputation to live up to (the 1982 movie is very highly regarded by John Carpenter fans, horror fans and even fans of good drama and story telling) and adding in the fact that the writers must somehow lead up to the original movie is a tough task to undertake. Overall, it was a valiant effort...but missed the mark.

The entire concept of the monster of this movie is that it dissolves any sort of trust between people. When these people are in a confined location like Antarctica, it becomes a boiler room situation with wills being tested, fears being escalated and the overall sense of any safety even with someone you've known for a while completely in chaos. I feel that this Thing movie missed that sense of despair, confinement and overall breakdown of the relationships between colleagues and comrades and even enemies when a shape shifting impostor is thrown into the mix. This is made blatantly evident when over half the characters don't seem worthy of care by the audience. Most have no personality to connect to, and the sheer number of characters just makes it worse to get to know these people. So when they start dropping like flies, one really doesn't care a whole lot.

And really, that's the fundamental flaw with the movie and why the whole thing feels forced. The pacing wasn't as deliberately slow, the whodunnit aspect didn't feel properly in place, and finally...and again, this criticism is as a fan of the original movie...why on earth did the thing not try to hide more than it did? At one point, it seemed like the movie shifted gears into a simple monster movie with *insert beastly monster* just running around killing which was completely uncharacteristic of the original movie where the thing, even when found out, would try to make an escape to hide again...

So in all, as a standalone movie, it wasn't bad at all. It was a nice return to gory disgusting things that go bump in the dark. But as a prequel, it missed the mark I think the film makers were trying to hit. John Carpenter laid out a very specific and deliberate tone to the original movie that this one just couldn't seem to figure out how to replicate...no blood test needed to find this impostor.

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")

I don't think people give this movie its due. Of course it's not as good as the 1982 movie but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's a very faithful prequel and sticks to the story excellently. If you watch them both back to back it's almost like one long movie (and it's a great night in) The performances are great. The setting, as in the John Carpenter classic is claustrophobic yet somehow vast and there are some very tense scenes. It is let down by cgi. I would have liked to have seen some of the practical effects that were talked about in the movie's marketing but it's a product of the time. Overall I enjoyed it.

A solid 7/10.

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.