After the successful remake of Invasion of The Body Snatchers John Carpenter decided to tackle another sci-fi classic, The Thing From Another World. For his remake he went back to the source material; the novella Who Goes There by John W. Campbell: and created a more faithful adaptation. He also shortens the title to simply The Thing.
He retained the Antarctic isolation and in added the ability for the alien monster to assume the shape of any creature it wants. So the movie feels like a mix of Alien, Body Snatchers and And Then there Were None.
This was Carpenters first big budget studio picture and he pulled out all the stops for state of the art special effects. But it feels like the director spent so much time on the effects that he forgot to build character and drama into the script.
If you are unfamiliar with the story; thousands of years ago an alien craft crash landed in the Antarctic. A group of scientists, for this film Norwegians, find the frozen craft and try to get it out of the ice. They also discover an alien frozen in the ice. When they defrost it, it comes back to life and starts killing everyone. After it's done killing everyone on the Norwegian team it invades the American outpost. Kurt Russell, Wilfred Brimley, Keith David, Richard Dysart and Donald Moffat all turn in solid performances.
The film has some great scary moments but suffers from some of the characters doing dumb things and over the top effects at the end that sacrifice story for visual impact. And we never do get to see what it really looks like.
At the Movie House rating **1/2 stars. Original vs. Remake - go with the Original
3 comments:
I disagree with your review as this is one of my favorite monster/scary movies of all time. I think it is possible that with the passage of time and better follow up monsters (Alien etc) that it has lost some luster but this movie scared the heck out of me when i first saw it. and the great line when the monster turns into a spider with one of their heads..."You gotta be f-in kiddin me!"...is one of the great monster lines of all time. I give Thing 3.5 stars and a big thumbs up....by the way, I told my nephew to see it, he is still having nightmares...by the way...Is depth of character really what we ar elooking for in a movie called The Thing....hmmmm, we would like you to reconsioder and at least give another star...notice I said We
You are correct when you mention the passage of time. This film has not held up well and a good horror movie should. many of the original sci-fi films in B&W still offer plenty of thrills today.
Alien came before The Thing and both offer the same basic plot. Unstoppable monster and a group of isolated people. Alien still holds up under repeated viewings. The Thing does not. Once the scares of The Thing are known the film has little to offer.
Yes the monster is great and the crawling head scene is outstanding. it is one of the best movie monsters in film history. But the last 30 minutes offer no suspense or tension whatsover. It's very flat. And of course they do the one thing they know they should not do, and that is wander off alone.
The film has many ridiculous plot points the best being the ship the Wilford Brimley character was building under the tool shed.
Carpenter allowed the scare moments and the special effects take priority over developing a really good story, with a good ending and well drawn characters and because of this the film does not stand up to repeated viewings.
The fact is while watching the movie I didn't care about any of the characters and was hoping the monster would win.
I stand by my rating of 2.5 stars. A fairly good film, but not above average for movies of it's type.
Mr. Moviehouse
We are putting your comment..."I hoped the monster would win"...Into the "Movie Reviewer Great Lines Hall of Fame"
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