Whether it was the black and white horror flick The Thing From Another World or John Carpenter’s horror remake masterpiece The Thing , this story played a huge part of my upbringing as a sci fi horror fan. So in 2011, I was pissed thinking Carpenter’s remake was getting remade (to be fair, naming your prequel the same as your original probably wasn’t the smartest move); finding out this is in fact a prequel gave me hope. How does this prequel fair?
Kate is a American paleontologist who gets recruited to a high profile excavation in the Arctic. The venture is a American and Norwegian; the only info most of them have is that a unknown structure is involved and an unidentified specimen. They take the specimen, incased in ice, back to base and celebrate, unaware of the terror about to be unleashed. If destroying a killer alien in the frozen tundra wasn’t a problem enough, what if the creature could be you?
Ok, so bullshit aside, Thing 2011 doesn’t offer pretty much anything Carpenter didn’t do better. Essentially, if you saw the remake, you knew these people were screwed from the get go. I will give the team credit for paying attention to detail so you can backtrack many of the imagery to things seen in the remake. While the acting is solid, no one really stands out. The effects are solid but too CGI heavy and too many times I felt like I was watching a cutscene for a video game rather than a movie; the ending especially has some of the most questionable effects. While the movie moves at a pretty fast pace, it does lack the suspense and intrigue of the remake. In the end, it’s not a bad movie or a great movie, but does good enough at being a prequel to a way better movie (think the Rogue One of horror prequels). May the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 