Prequel to a remake holds some mighty frozen ground By Morgan P Salvo
People booed. Some walked out. One guy even cursed the screen as the credits rolled. I laughed my ass off…nothing like a shameless rip-off of an already shameless remake.
Suffice it to say this is my kind of movie.
I was so primed to hate this movie. Back when I first saw a trailer for this 2011 The Thing all I could ask myself was why? I was afraid that I’m a little too familiar with the material. As a kid I used to watch the original Howard Hawks’ 50’s classic every Halloween afternoon on TV just to sift through all the slow moving technical scientific mumbo jumbo to get the big scary “Thing” payoff at the end. And the 1982 John Carpenter version’s over-the-top gory remake is one of my favorites. 
This prequel takes all its cues from the ‘82 version and fills in all the gaps in basically the same formulaic predicaments of how to deal with the unknown entity. Basically the Thing can enter and hide in a human host and from there wreak havoc so it’s always a cat and mouse game of who could possibly be the inhuman culprit. It can only be killed by death by burning so the weapon of choice is the flame thrower. Still a good combo of the first two this Thing pretty much morphs into a replica of the second. Based in Antarctica a Norwegian expedition team (who are about 50 miles from where the Carpenter version takes place) find an entity encased in ice that looks like the Donnie Darko Bunny or an evil lobster claw and the fun starts here. The combination of blood spewing, gut churning, high camp and seriousness that so defined Carpenter’s stay intact in this prequel. Even with Mary Elizabeth Winstead the chick from final destination three and Eric Christian Olsen the guy form that cheerleader movie Fired Up! Hero Joel Edgerton and even Mr. Echo from Lost shows up Ulrich Thomsen is the stern and strict ( the kind you want to see get punched) scientist wearing the same fur hat from the 50s.
During the credits the movie continues and director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr somehow puts an entire European feel to this movie. ‘82 Thing was way before CGI so the special effects that might seem low tech by today’s standards but for the time it was state of the art super gruesome weirdness. But the funniest part was how 2011 Thing’s high tech CGI effects still come off cheesy and hilarious, a lot like the goopy creatures from Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond or Brian Yuzna’s Society. We’re still talking big gooey meaty slits, all teeth and tendrils with whipping fanged tentacles. We also get some of the craziest demon alien morphing onscreen to date. There are plenty of flying alien guts and even an updated head-with-spider legs creature that had me laughing in the aisles. Maybe this version didn’t live up to the disgruntled people’s expectations but all put together the Thing is a formula that can’t go wrong. I know now that I wasted energy thinking that I wasn’t going to like this flick. Whether it’s a prequel or the other side of the ice-slope they can keep making this kind of Thing anytime they want.
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olsen, Ulrich Thomsen
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr
Rated R
3 ½ stars
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