It's sort of weird how this movie went through several stages during production. What was originally supposed to be a prequel, turned more into a remake, of John Carpenter's 1982 movie "The Thing", which on its own was a remake of the 1951 movie "The Thing from Another World". And out of the bunch, this latest 2011 version is by far the worst one.
It isn't even necessarily a bad movie because it happens to be a weak remake of a classic movie but also as a genre movie on its own, this is a real lacking one.
They will still pretend and try to sell this movie to you as a prequel to the 1982 "The Thing" but let me tell you, if this truly was supposed to be a prequel, than why does it carry the exact same title as the 1982 classic and why does it feature some of the exact same moments in it? Really, if you're familiar already with the John Carpenter movie, than there is absolutely no reason for you to ever see this movie. It adds nothing new and chances are it will only anger you to see this movie doing lots of things wrong, which the 1982 movie did so brilliantly.
Where to begin? Well, let's first start off by saying that the movie has far too little tension and excitement in it. This is all due to a rather weak buildup. Things simply happen and it thinks that it is enough to show a bunch of very random killings to turn this into a tense and spectacular movie. It simply doesn't work that way. It should had taken its time to setup its characters better first and after that it should had also taken some more time to buildup its mystery and suspense. Instead now the 'thing' is on the loose pretty early on in the movie already and also gets fully revealed way too early on.
Another thing that this movie did poorly was having too much of the 'thing' in it. Thing about the 'thing' is that he can be everybody. He (or perhaps she?) is a shape-shifter and can turn into anyone that it first kills and consumes. This movie does this far too often, instead of focusing on the mystery or tension of how the 'thing' can be. it becomes a sort of a gimmick for the movie instead. It besides shows the 'thing' too often in its alien form, which also takes away so much of the mystery and threatening power of the creature.
It's also true that it uses far too many, not always even so good looking, special effects. It's perhaps not fair to keep comparing this movie to the far superior 1982 one but one of the biggest strengths of the 1982 movie was the use of practical effects. Everything looked so incredibly scary and disgusting because of that, while this movie never manages to succeed at this, not even remotely. It isn't even an all that gory film, which will also probably disappoint some of the horror fans.
No, it of course is not the worst genre movie I have- or you will ever see. It's just a bit too formulaic all and without any true good tension or mystery in it. It's disappointing really that this movie isn't trying anything new or creative with its concept and instead is being more of the same, when you compare it to the 1982 movie "The Thing".
5/10
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