Film Review: The Thing

Summary:

The Thing is a quite good horror film but certainly not a great one

More DetailsAbout The Thing (2011)Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) joins a Norwegian scientific team in Antarctica that has discovered an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, and an organism that seems to have died in the crash. When an experiment frees the alien, a shape-shifting creature with the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. Paranoia soon spreads like an epidemic as they’re infected, one by one, and a thrilling race for survival begins… The Thing is a prelude to John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film of the same name.

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olsen, Ulrich Thomsen

Directed by: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

Runtime: 102 minutes

Studio: Universal Pictures

Amazon USAmazon UKIMDB

Review: The Thing

John Carpenter’s 1982 version of The Thing is a classic horror but it left a few interesting questions aside from that fascinating ending. The Americans came under attack from an alien discovered by a group of Norwegians who hadn’t fared so well. While we could make some assumptions about what became of them, Matthijs van Heijningen’s prequel tells the full story. One of the difficulties for the group in Carpenter’s film was the language barrier when they briefly encounter two Norwegians at the start of that film but in this prequel we do have many Norwegians but also some Americans so the bulk of the feature is in English.

The Norwegian research team have uncovered a spaceship beneath the Antarctic ice and nearby is a body frozen in the ice. Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is called in by Dr Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) to help examine the alien remains. After transporting the remains in a block of ice back to base, the alien is soon awake and begins stalking everyone at the base. When they realise that the alien infects and mimics its prey suspicion rises amongst the group and they begin to doubt who is friend and who is foe.

Emulating John Carpenter’s film was always going to be difficult and The Thing does fall somewhat short. I did find it a little silly to introduce Americans into the Norwegian base just to give the film an excuse to have this in English. It doesn’t quite tie in with the original film but it does retain a lot of the tension from Carpenter’s especially recreating the blood test scene, albeit with a different means of indicating who is infected and who is still human. As with many modern horrors, computer effects somehow don’t have the same appeal as the older films that had to improvise greatly with many of their effects. The cast are okay rather than spectacular with Winstead’s Kate inheriting the crown of Ripley in proving herself far stronger and resourceful than any of the men at the base. The ending for at least one of the characters remains open-ended and it appears there will be no link to the start of Carpenter’s film until the very final reels where everything is thrown in at the last second and is left feeling somewhat rushed.

The Thing is a quite good horror film but certainly not a great one. It had a lot stacked against it given the brilliance of the film it is related to. This is pretty standard horror fare which does retain some of the tension from the previous film but in the end it just doesn’t stand out. Such a shame.

Verdict: 3/5

(Film source: reviewer’s own copy)