Recently I reviewed John Carpenter's The Thing, I film I consider to be a masterpiece, and to be one of the best films ever made. The way I feel about its 2011 little brother is therefore quite strange, because being a horror remake with a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 35%, you'd think it would suck. Well I say fuck Rotten Tomatoes, it's Halloween, so let's look at that film no one seems to talk about, and that I think really deserves more love than it gets.
The Thing, just like it's older brother, knows how to set the scene, with a sweeping wide of a the barren emptiness of the Antarctic, and, just like the Helicopter, a tiny speck of humanity, this time a Snowcat full of Norwegians. This film does however make the difference of a very CG heavy reveal of the crashed ship, we'll get to that later, but then of course we are introduced to our hero, Kate. This film could have been lazy and just ripped of MacReady from the first film for its protagonist, but, as I'll be repeating later, it's not that lazy; giving us someone who is actually not the same person, just gender swapped. Unlike the rogue alcoholic recluse that spearheaded the original, Kate is more social, the pair do share traits however, being resourceful and quick thinking, while Kate tries a bit harder to keep herself level headed. The fact remains however that, while they don't come from the same place, they end up in the same place, making them an easy comparison, maybe I'm just biased, because it's Mary Elizabeth Winstead, what can I say, that chick is fine, even finer when she's wielding a flamethrower. An immediate weakness that this film unfortunately has is characters; you have Kate, Carter, the helicopter pilot who becomes the closest thing Kate has to a friend. Sander, one of the Norwegian scientists, who is actually pretty good, as he becomes obsessed with the creature, disregarding the objections and eventually the safety of his team, and valuing the historical significance of both the find and himself higher than anything else. Besides that however, this film doesn't even come close to Carpenter's original, the film opts for more characters, and unlike the original, I struggle to remember any of their names. This is a problem in the same way Alien became a problem, the original film had a small group of very well defined characters, making the horror sparser, but more impactful, whereas Covenant ramps up the horror, at the expense of good characterisation and impactful horror. The Thing is nowhere near as bad as Covenant though, this film actually does have some good horror, and it doesn't completely shit on the original. The Thing, again not being lazy, also decides to throw some twists on the original's formula; there is a blood test scene, but it's different, and changed in a way that subverts the original in a very suspenseful and effective way, while not breaking the rules the original established. It further mixes things up in terms of story, actually telling its own story, one that works well on its own, and still works surprisingly well in the context of the original, it does however still go for the ambiguous ending, but with a final twist that's actually pretty good, and the transition from this film to the '82 film is seamless, with them even reusing some of the footage from the original. Something that does become an advantage for this film is the pacing, more characters equals more horror, and with about the same runtime as the original, that speeds things up. I like slower films, while also being able to appreciate why some wouldn't, this film is not a slow film; there is considerably more horror here than in the original, and with more potential suspects, the film also plays the same antitrust element as before. That antitrust doesn't have the same impact due to the less developed characters, but it's there, and the film does have a few really tense scenes as people get paranoid. The film wisely never gives away who the Thing is, just like its older brother, but there are still hints for eagle eyed viewers, and that is something I adore.
The sense of isolation so beautifully captured in the original is still here, as well as the nihilism of already knowing how this scenario ends. The psychological aspect of the film is down played however, which is disappointing, as it comes at the expense of the dread, and the mortality of the hero is never as challenged as it was in the original. But unfortunately this film has a flaw, but it's less of a flaw with the film, and more of a flaw with the genre and the industry. Since I last looked at this film years ago, I've been doing some homework, and this film actually had a very troubled production. There was a disconnect between the filmmakers, who wanted to make a companion piece to the original, full of gruesome practical effects and slow, deliberate horror, and the studio, who wanted a more conventional horror, which is mostly what we got. If you've seen this film and wondered why the CG was so bad in some scenes, it was because they rushed the CG because it's what the studio wanted, they even changed the film's ending, and while the current ending is fine, that original ending is definitely better. It's actually tragic, because the studio that did the practical effects work for the film started releasing test footage, and it looked really good, but it didn't sit well with the studio or test audiences or whatever, so they replaced effectively all of it with CG. I actually wouldn't have minded a mix of CG and practical, unlike some who think CG in a Thing remake is sacrilege, it was inevitable, but that would have required there actually being a mix, and there wasn't, some of the CG looks really good, but even that doesn't compare to the tiny amount of practical effects still in the film, which look stunning. Another problem is jumpscares, the original film had none, it relied entirely on its psychological and body horror, this film however, as well as cramming in the CG, crams in a few jumpscares. Thankfully the film doesn't rely on them, the body horror is still very prevalent, but the film does use jumpscares a bit more than it should. It's even worse then that the film still has some really intense scenes; there's a scene when Carter is trying to hide from the Thing while it's skulking in the same room as him, this scene has no jumpscares, and relies entirely on body horror and atmosphere, and it's excellent. The antitrust element, while less impactful, still makes for some good tension, and the final scene with Kate and Carter is beautifully done. Going back to something I said earlier, I do actually think that this film improves a few things about the original, as sacrilegious as that sounds. One of those things is pacing, though the original's was perfect and deliberate, it like that this one is faster paced. But one thing that is better is the soundtrack. Again, the original's music is brilliant, but so is this in my opinion, and there's more of it in this film, with it again going less for impact and more for spectacle, and it actually works in my opinion, this film has a really effective soundtrack, one I was listening to while writing this very review, it's great to hear the old motifs of the original, but this film's additions are really good, and in keeping with both this film and the original's bleakness.
I honestly don't know why people hate this film; sure it's not as masterfully made as the original, but it was never going to be; this film's biggest weaknesses are the over reliance on CG, and that some of that CG is really not very good, but that's not the film's fault. Flaws that are the film's fault are poor characterisation for its Norwegians, and one or two or four too many jumpscares, but this isn't that shitty knockoff I've heard people refer to it as, because it does manage to replicate many of the original's strengths, way more than a shitty knockoff would. The body horror is still here, if with diminished impact, and the antitrust is still here, again if with diminished impact, but the film doesn't betray what the first set up, it's still clear that someone, somewhere in this film's production actually cared about what they were doing. The original is a masterpiece, even if this film is only half as good, that still isn't bad, and that's really what it is; a more conventional, admittedly diluted horror about the Thing, but it's still strong enough in key areas to not deserve the shit it gets, even in the shadow of the original. The Thing is a great little sci fi horror, and it's definitely worth watching.
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