Written By: Dan Geer

John Carptenter’s 1982 film, The Thing (a remake of the 1950s classic, The Thing from Another World) has almost become as much of a cult classic as his much-beloved film, Halloween (from my point of view, it is arguably a better film altogether). It holds up today as much as it did 29 years ago, still scaring the pants off of most everyone who watches it. It has gone down in film history as one of the best sci-fi thrillers of all time, right up there with Ridley Scott’s Alien.

So the idea of making a prequel – showing us just what exactly happened to that devastated Norwegian base camp at the beginning of Carpenter’s film – is something that has been met with both excitement, as well as skepticism from fans of the original 1982 film. Even though it could be intriguing to see how it all went down, what’s the point, really? We basically already know what happened, so what possible reason is there to go back and show it? Furthermore, how could it possibly live up to the original? While these questions can really only be answered by experiencing the film for yourself, I can say that there’s more to it than you might think – although not much.

We already know that those at the Norwegian base camp in Antarctica discovered an alien spacecraft buried in the ice, along with a frozen alien body that broke free of the ice and terrorized the camp. So, the job of director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.‘s The Thing (2011) is really not to just bring us up to the point where Carpenter’s movie began, but to also make us actually care for characters that we previously only knew as maimed corpses. Who were they? What’s their story? I suppose the biggest question of all is, do we really know the whole story?

For the most part, what happens in this film is basically what you would expect if you have already seen Carpenter’s film. It repeats a lot of what happened in that original movie in that the alien kills any organic life form that stands in its way and takes the form of its victims in the process. We’re stuck at a facility in the middle of Antarctica, not knowing who’s human and who’s the Thing, which creates a sense of distrust and paranoia amongst the group. We’ve seen it all before.

While this may not be all that original, it does fit with what has come before (or after?), and it is executed fairly effectively. One of the reasons why it sort of works is that we really don’t know everyone’s fate. I, for one, had always assumed that everyone at the Norwegian base camp died. But is that really the case? If you think about it, some could have survived, and we just were never made aware of that fact in Carpenter’s film. There is, in fact, still room for an interesting and suspenseful story where we don’t quite know everything that is going to happen. That’s a good thing when dealing with a prequel, and this film takes advantage of that.

Regrettably, it doesn’t have nearly as great of an ensemble cast like in Carpenter’s film. Most of them are pretty forgettable, actually. However, it does make us care enough for a few of the characters to want to take this terrifying journey with them and find out whether or not they survive – particularly Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) the American paleontologist recruited to examine the alien, and helicopter pilot Braxton Carter (Joel Edgerton). The story also includes an effective human villain in the character of Dr. Sandor Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen), who seems to be more concerned about the discovery they have made than the terror that is about to engulf the camp. While the Thing is terrifying in this film, it is almost just as terrifying how far someone like this doctor might go in the name of science to preserve something that could destroy mankind. This movie could have played up the idea a bit more, but it is there, and his character is interesting and conniving enough to make us want to see if he gets his comeuppance in the end.

But enough of the moral of the story. This movie, while it’ll never be as great or memorable as the original and doesn’t really offer much in the realm of originality, it at least fits alongside Carpenter’s film quite well as a good starting point. It’s a notable companion piece to the original film. Not only is the continuity completely in line with the original (right up to the opening scene from the 1982 film with the helicopter chasing the dog), but it is also just as frightening in some areas. This time, the film utilizes both practical and CGI effects to help bring the Thing to life and scare the living crap out of the audience, and many times it works just as well, if not better than the original. When the alien is mutating into someone or something else, it is truly just as gruesome and horrifying as anything we saw in Carpenter’s film. What’s more is that these frightening effects very much resemble the effects in that film, despite the use of CGI in certain areas. The film seamlessly fits the world Carpenter created, even though it was made almost 30 years later.

Admittedly, this film wasn’t necessary to make. It doesn’t really offer anything that we haven’t seen before (save for a suspenseful scene within the alien craft itself that’s quite thrilling). But it certainly provides all the thrills and chills one would expect from The Thing, with its chilling atmosphere and creepy special effects, and it makes for an adequate prequel that reveals to the audience that we didn’t really know everything beforehand like we thought. Perhaps, since both films are titled The Thing, they should be watched back to back as if it were one grand story with an exciting opening act and an even greater climactic ending. After all, isn’t the second act usually the more exciting half of the story anyway?

Rating:  (out of four)