The Thing (2011)

Okay it’s not festive, doesn’t have Santa or a wrestler, but I’m working on it! I want to do my first video review on it, so I need time. Should do it quickly though, Christmas is almost over. But in the meantime, here’s The Thing.

As you may remember from my ‘Episode 50’ review, I did a mini top ten horror film list with the 1982 film ‘The Thing’ is number six, though, to be honest, is probably in my top twenty favourite films. I am a huge fan of the 80s film, so I wanted to see how the 2011 film screwed it up.

Obvious problems first; it’s a modern version of an old classic, you know as well as I do that they normally suck. Granted someone did see this, decided the original was already perfect, and changed it so that it is no longer a remake, but a prequel. The problem with that is it’s still called ‘The Thing’, so it’s confusing when you try to refer to whichever film. Then again the film is called ‘The Thing’ because no-one thought of a good enough subtitle that sounded good.

But the thing is, it’s still effectively the same film; a group of people find an alien life form and they have to defeat it while not knowing if people are who they say they are. While not knowing what they’re dealing with is what you’d expect in a prequel, but, at the same the characters are playing catch up with the audience.

 

Other problem? Well, the problem with horror film prequels is that the evil force has to win. Otherwise there isn’t an original film to do a prequel for. That means we know that none of the characters will survive, so we can’t really form a connection with them.

Although this film actually does the opposite. It gives most, if not all, the characters time to develop, so we can actually start to care about them. But you do find that some of the characters are running the same course as the original, the scientist who wants to preserve the creature and will obviously become the Thing later, the lead character who tries to stop everyone from leaving, the characters who become increasingly paranoid, etc, etc. Not that it matters because, especially to new viewers, we still care about them.

The acting was really good, both the Americans and Norwegians give great performances. Everyone managed to give great natural reactions, the fear, the terror, the paranoia of not knowing who is who, it’s all there. I definitely like Mary Elizabeth Winstead character, Kate Lloyd, in this, especially as they gave her character Ripley (from ‘Alien’ fame) characteristics, rather than trying to match her with Kurt Russell’s character from the ‘82 film.

It’s also quite brilliant the way they managed to link so many bits and pieces to the original film; which it should, it is a prequel. But the point still stands. There’s the axe in the wall, there’s the two faced burnt creature, and the end credits even lead into the ’82 film. Then there’s all the little throw backs, like the strange carcass that Winstead is examining (which looks a lot like the Thing from the ’82 film...I’m just gonna say ’82 Thing now).

There’s also a nice few fake outs as well, like the wrong person on the helicopter was the Thing, and the guy examining the Thing getting scared at a guy behind him before the Thing breaks out; though in all honesty I did get the feeling that was coming. I did also like how it appeared that they were going along the same lines as the original, but then change it, like the ’11 film was going to do the blood test, but the Thing would then sabotage the experiment by setting fire to the place. There’s also the point where you’re expecting them to do the defibrillator scene, but they cut it short by having the Thing start attacking then.

The only thing I feel let this film down was the CGI. Now, I am a fan of the old effects, back when CGI wasn’t really around. It’s because back in the 80s, the effects look real because they are real. Not literally of course, but it has an actual physical appearance, unlike nowadays where CGI mainly looks fake. Especially towards the end when we saw the ’11 Thing with a human face on its alien body, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud in the cinema, it looked that stupid. But the CGI isn’t that bad the whole time, sometimes it was very effective. The scene where the Thing merges with Adam (Eric Christian Olsen) to form the two-faced Thing was extremely well done and was probably my favourite scene in the whole film, not only because of the CGI, but because of the disturbing images and the feeling you get from it. When you see the two-faced Thing later, again, the CGI ruins it.

Now, I have heard some very loyal fans say that the 2011 film destroys the mystery behind the Thing, that the fear we have is of the unknown. Not really. The only extra bit of information we get is the ship the Thing arrived in. Ta da! Seriously, we already knew it was an alien life form, knowing about the ship didn't really change that. We still don’t know why the ship crashed or what the Thing actually is. I'm guessing that whatever alien life was originally on the ship experienced the same thing the human characters did in both the ’82 and ’11 films. The Thing killed all the aliens, the ship crashed and the Thing was frozen solid. But that’s a theory, we still don’t know what the Thing is or how it came to Earth.

But there some annoying things in this film which bug me. We later see in the film that the Thing knows how to fly the ship, so why was the Thing outside the ship? The human characters find it frozen, so the Thing was outside long enough to freeze. Was there an ejector seat or something? Why was the Thing on the outside of the ship when it could’ve just flown off? WHY?!

Then there’s the dog. Yes it was cool that it lead to the opening of the ’82 film, but the dog was the first to be attacked by the Thing, why was it the last to appear? There's also the point when the only other female character Juliette (Kim Bubbs) accuses another character of being the Thing, which then made it extremely obvious that she was actually the Thing. The only other thing she needed was a giant neon sign. It would've also made more sense if Winstead's character was the Thing towards the end. I don't know it would've made the film better n my opinion.

But apart from all that, it is a very solid film, one which can be taken serious and which the continuity is actually followed by the ’82 film. I still prefer the ’82 film, but the ’11 film is a really strong film, probably the best horror film of the year.