Where do I start? It’s Hollywood (well America and Canada, actually) fucking around with one of my all-time favourite horror movies. Rob Zombie made a dog’s breakfast of Halloween (1978), another all-time fave, and now a Dutch director and an American screenwriter are allowed to tamper with The Thing (1982), another John Carpenter masterpiece. The producers of Zack Snyder’s re-imagining of Dawn of the Dead (2004) got their mitts on the Universal rights to Carpenter’s remake (yes, a remake, but hell, so vastly different – and superior – to the Howard Hawks original), and with director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. on board helming his first feature, and screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who penned the tedious remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) and the recently released Final Destination 5 (2011), the pair pitched the idea of not a sequel to Carpenter’s movie (so MacReady and Childs remain freezing their nuts off not knowing if either is an alien), nor a remake (of a remake), but instead a prequel, telling the story of the ill-fated Norwegian base that MacReady and crew visit and find decimated.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate
The original prequel screenwriter, Ronald D. Moore, described The Thing (2011) as a “companion piece” to Carpenter’s. Moore’s draft was so extensively re-written by Heisserer, that he no longer receives a credit. Apparently Heisserer went back to John W. Campbell Jr’s original short story, Who Goes There? for inspiration, as well as studying Carpenter’s movie intensively so as to provide continuity, as the prequel ends with a segue scene that leads directly into Carpenter’s movie. But the irony is that The Thing prequel is as much a remake of Carpenter’s movie as it is a prequel, so as a companion piece it is very buddy-buddy howdy-doody. There are numerous scenes that mimic/replicate (ha, the irony!) Carpenter’s movie, so that it begs the question, what’s the bloody point? I felt the same way with the Hollywood remake of Let the Right One In (2008), Let Me In (2010).
Derek (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Carter (Joel Edgerton) defend themselves
But then I have to let the cynical reigns loosen a little and consider that there will be many who will watch The Thing prequel who haven’t seen Carpenter’s movie, and will no doubt find it to be an entertaining science-fiction horror, just as those who watched Let Me In, without having seen the Swedish original. Still, despite the telling of the Norwegian’s plight, there is not a lot of new material, it’s essentially re-telling the plight of the American base; hapless scientists are terrorised by a desperate, malevolent xenomorph that is able to absorb the human body and then replicate it, thus hiding and escaping detection, and creating paranoid and distrust amongst the surviving humans.
The ice is drilled for an alien tissue sample
Taking place three days before the events of Carpenter’s movie, young paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is recruited by scientist Sander Halversen (Ulrich Thomsen) and his assistant Adam Goodman (Eric Christian Olsen) to join a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship buried beneath the ice of Antarctica. They discover the frozen corpse of a creature that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. A prologue sequence has three of the Norwegian team discover the crash zone when their Snowcat crashes through thin ice and plummets into an abyss, but becomes wedged. They shine their torches into the darkness and illuminate a giant spacecraft.
Kate and Halversen (Ulrich Thomsen) look on as the thing is autopsied
After recovering the frozen creature in a large block of ice, they transport it back to their base and conduct a tissue sample experiment, drilling through the ice. Kate is dubious about Halversen’s ethics. Later while they all toast their extraordinary discovery in the rec room Derek (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), one of the two American chopper pilots, goes and has a squizz at the alien beast silhouetted in the translucent, melting and cracked, ice block. Suddenly and violently the thing bursts out and smashes out through the roof. All hell has broken loose.
Kate and Carter trying to escape the thing's spacecraft
Kate ends up as a cross between a fearless Ripley and a re-imagining of MacReady’s character, with Joel Edgerton playing the other American chopper pilot who aids her in trying to stay one step ahead of the thing. The rest of the cast is thing fodder.
I admired Heisserer adhering to a high level of continuity (reverse engineering) to Carpenter’s movie, with the production design of the Norwegian base, and including Colin (Jonathon Lloyd Walker), who MacReady and crew discover had slit his throat as he started to change into the thing, and the blood-splattered axe in the wall. But I wasn’t so impressed with the reveal of the thing’s spacecraft interior. It these scenes, late in the movie, the production design looks cheap, like a Doctor Who set, and not very convincing. Especially as the suspense surrounding Kate a la Ripley is very reminiscent of the end of Alien (1979), and the alien interior is obviously echoing Giger’s work, but fails to impress. The thing’s analogue/digital block engine (?) core concept was curious, but in the end, only a distraction.
I did enjoy the use of Ennio Morricone's "heartbeat" cue, which bookends the movie. And similar reveal of the title credit, as well as the same font for the opening credits, including the establishing, "Antarctica, Winter, 1982."
The special effects are solid, with a fairly seamless integration of CGI and animatronic work, but I couldn’t get Rob Bottin’s masterful work out of my mind. There are several nods to his work in Carpenter’s. I was disappointed that the thing’s primary form was only revealed very briefly at the end. I thought we’d see it when it escaped the ice block, but that was a blur of movement. The overall effect of the special effects was underwhelming.
Director Heijningen has aimed at maintaining the suspense and strong character of Carpenter’s movie, but in doing so, he achieves a half-decent effect, but ultimately is walking in the footsteps of a master. The movie is by no means mediocre, but hollow comes to mind. It's tense without being truly frightening. The cast is solid, and nice to see Mary Elizabeth Winstead in such a serious role, but I wasn’t completely sold on Edgerton’s vague American accent, and how come he knew nothing of the American base, instead telling Kate they’ll head to a nearby Russian one … Well, I do know really, but that would reveal a possible sequel spoiler. And for once I’ll stay buttoned on that.
Fright Night (2011) is an example of a remake that takes the ball and runs with it. The Thing (2011) is an example of a remake, er, I mean prequel, which takes the ball, and throws it over its shoulder hoping someone behind will catch it. Hmmm, I’m not quite sure I understand my own analogy, but you get the drift.
Now, the question is, will Ridley Scott's Alien companion piece-cum-prequel, Prometheus, due out next year, be a stand-alone great movie, or will it remain trapped in the shadow of its masterful original?
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