The Thing

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
1 Comment
Spoiler Warning - Post may contain spoilers

Just back from seeing the prequel come remake of The Thing.  Not a bad film with some pretty landscape shots.  Unfortunately far too keen to show off the alien, the alien human hybrids and the space ship.  Also suffered from too many clichés.   Most of the “shocks” were very effectively spoilt by an overly obvious pre-shock – man in nervous situation, someone shouts boo at him then after a slow count to five the alien bursts out of its icy home.  Similarly lazy dialogue.  A shame because the potential for horror by building paranoia in a small group cut off from outside help lurks through the film.

Can someone explain why a geological expedition to Antarctica in 1982 has two flamethrowers, a box of grenades and at least one assault rifle?  Were they afraid some polar bears might migrate from the Artic?

Also suffered from the makers having watched Alien one too many time and wanting their very own Ripley to play with in a sequel to their prequel they left open in the first of their two endings.  The second ending cut into the credits pretty much sets up the original film.

The Thing is not a bad film overall but not one I’ll be planning to see again.

 

Leave a Comment

One Response to The Thing

Drunken Goblin Thursday, December 15th, 2011

The original “Thing” is in my top 5 films and after I watched it the first time I had to watch the entire John Carpenter back catalogue. It hooked me on horror films until I was into my late 20s and then all that teen flick “SCREAM” copycat shite happened.

“Slither” is a brilliant horror / comedy film and if you every get the chance to see it grab it with both hands. Bit of a flop at the cinema but I loved the film.

I was over the moon when I found out they were doing a prequel to the Thing and it was only equalled by my disappointment in the delay to the UK release date over the US release.

I agree with some of your points on why you don’t like the new film but here are my thoughts…

Flame throwers are just cool, so the real question is why you would NOT take one. Teach that huge frickin iceberg who boss!

As the film’s set in the 80s you could also get away with the assault rifle and grenades due to the cold war. In fact it makes me wonder why the Americans only had one hand gun. Seriously, I thought they would have a whole room of the stuff and also where did the assault rifle disappeared after the Norwegian dropped it...

The paranoia angle was covered brilliantly in the first film and drawing a comparison with the Alien franchise this was most definitely the Aliens outing. We've done the suspense hiding in the shadows thing and now its time to take it to the max.

I felt there was an issue with the film but mostly down to the monster itself, too much CGI made it look like crap and really took me out of the moment.

Still loved the film and it will be a DVD purchase when it’s released…

… of course this is mainly to get a box set with the original as my copy of the Thing DVD is so old it’s only a small image in the middle of the screen.

impworks © Copyright Mark Caldwell 1996 - 2024