The Thing Review

• 1st Dec 2011

A group of multi-national scientists, including Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton, assemble in a research centre in Antarctica to investigate a mysterious discovery in the ice, a discovery that soon reveals extremely grisly predilections. Born of an obvious love for John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing, this prequel seeks to answer some of the questions raised by its forefather, which as you all should know, starts in media res with a helicopter chase across the ice flats. What the prequel gives us is the story of the infamous “crazy Swedes” and reveals the events leading directly up to that same helicopter ride.

The original is generally hailed as a superb piece of the film-making. Cast, crew and location all come together to form something chilling, disturbing and totally engaging.  Unfortunately, and alas unsurprisingly, Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s 2011 The Thing doesn’t reach those heights and instead we are served something altogether more generic and unsubtle. The sad thing is that despite the director’s proclaimed love for the original, he has delivered a quite different type of film: a modern jumpy/gross-out horror, rather than a lingering, suspense-filled slow burner. It’s more like he loved the concept of the 1982 film but thought the tempo too slow. Can’t be too disappointed, it’s not like anyone could have ever expected something as genius as Carpenter’s masterpiece. The creeping sense of suspicion that is the permanent theme throughout the original is almost totally lacking; in fact, the tension is barely sustained as the creature absorbs one character after another with very little in the way of subterfuge to disguise the fact. The various incarnations of the half devoured research team are truly, viscerally, unpleasant, so it’s not all bad. The huge stalking monstrosity of spliced bits of crew is pretty vile (i.e. awesome) any way you look at it, but the film sadly doesn’t give you the time to really enjoy the chase scenes leading up to the big horrific revelation of the creature in all its deformed glory.

The other main bone of contention is, rather than an explanation of where the thing itself came from, or what it is really doing here on Earth, the film focuses solely on the events after the creature is discovered. Perhaps we will be graced with a prequel to this prequel; a Prometheus for this Alien. The spaceship beneath the ice is never really explored–surely the implications such technology has would outweigh the need to dissect the inhabitant? Unfortunately the CGI that gives the creature its realistic hideousness doesn’t quite extend with any degree of success to the huge vessel. We are suddenly left wondering if some of the cast have wandered onto a Stargate set.

Despite all this there are several good scenes and some pretty solid performances. One particular portion that does stand out in terms of the suspense it generates is the ‘testing’ scene where the staff at the facility try to weed out the infected. Admittedly, it feels a tad too familiar for those who know the original, despite its crafty twist. It does, however, have a hefty amount of dramatic tension about it, and the acting from the two leads really does shine here. All in all it’s not a bad film, despite some bad eggs in the cast, and it’s definitely worth a viewing, especially if you are not a hard-line fan of the original.

Hannah Turner