Category: Movie Review

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.

So folks, this blog has been going on a few years now and with the exception of a brief mention in 5 remakes that went and pissed me off and I’ve praised Halloween as well as Halloween (2018) so it comes full circle having to talk about Rob Zombie’s remake. Oh boy…

The Myers family was a white trash family in a busted down home in the otherwise decent neighborhood of Haddonfield, Illinois. Michael, the middle child, is a mentally unstable kid from an abusive home and consistently being bullied at school loving only his mom, baby sister, and the masks he’s obsessed with. Come one Halloween night, Michael snaps, slaughtering his sister, her boyfriend, and step dad. He’s sent away to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium where he was fruitlessly treated by Dr. Sam Loomis for fifteen years, until he escaped and picked up where his killing spree ended…

Ok, if this wasn’t a remake of one of my all time favorites, I’d be fine with it mostly. Adult Michael is a badass and I do really like the withered mask and his ultra violent nature. I like how Zombie uses a mix of Carpenter’s classic scores as well as a intense, updated version of them. I really like how the movie overall tries to treat Michael Myers as the main character and I was surprised at how heartfelt the relationship between Michael and Loomis was at times. I even liked how it ended between Laurie and Michael. All of these are positives he brought to the table and genuinely you can tell he was into it. BUT the negatives absolutely kill this movie. First, I can’t stand the overusing of language and sleaze in Zombie’s movies; I’m really open minded but Zombie overuses foul language and sleaze to where it becomes just annoying and makes pretty of his characters unlikeable. Young Michael was simply annoying as shit and if you couldn’t peg him as a future serial killer, no one would be, missing almost the whole point of the original. Between the scummy town, dickhead teens, money grubbing Loomis, and whiney Michael, no one in this movie is likeable and the whole point of Michael Myers is thrown out the window. I also feel like this movie is a somewhat decent prequel but the whole third act feels like condensed, rushed remake of the original. I’m also wondering how the hell a chubby kid grew into a jacked up 6’8 behemoth locked away in a asylum for 15 years. Michael’s mask obsession bothered the shit out of me and seemed cliché. In the end, the movie is ok but doesn’t hold a candle to the original or 2018 but it’s way better than House of 1000 Corpses . Happy Halloween everyone and may the gaming gods bring you glory.