The Thing

In John Carpenter’s ground-breaking 1982 monster movie masterpiece “The Thing,” the monster at the centre of the story is an imitator. It is an abominable creature from outer space that can absorb and flawlessly imitate any life form it so pleases; it can then walk around in the life form’s skin without anyone noticing a Thing. It may look like the life form and it may act like the life form, but it is not the life form; it is a hollow shell of what once was. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s newly released prequel to “The Thing” is, rather ironically, exactly this – one could even suspect this was a deliberate act by the filmmakers.

This prequel, arriving almost thirty years after its legendary predecessor, is an imitator. It is a carbon copy of its masterful original in almost every way; the plot is the same, the setting is the same and the structure of the story is point-for-point exactly the same. But it is not the same; unlike Carpenter’s version and like its monster, it is empty inside, with very little to be said for it in terms of originality. It is a copy, an imitation if you will, and nothing more.

With his logic, I suppose one should actually be calling it a remake; but no, the filmmakers seem adamant that it is a prequel and not a remake, in spite of it replicating its predecessor at almost every single step. Yes, it ties itself up with the beginning of the original with a scene that plays during the end credits, but take away this sequence and what you’ve got is a film that could have very easily been marketed as a remake and nobody would have batted an eyelid when actually watching the film.

You may remember seeing at the beginning of Carpenter’s version two Norwegian men frantically chasing after and shooting at a dog that soon turns out to be the dreaded Thing in canine disguise. Well, this prequel sets out to tell the story of how this event transpired, and of what precisely happened at the deserted Norwegian base seemingly attacked by the Thing – it turns out that pretty much exactly the same circumstances we witnessed occur in the first film occurred here too.

The story begins in the middle of Antarctica, where three Norwegian scientists discover a spaceship buried below the ice, as well as what seems to be an alien life form also encased in ice. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “Final Destination 3”), a palaeontologist, is requested to fly to Antarctica and aid in a team’s mission to find out what the hell this thing is (spoiler: it turns out it’s a Thing). The team digs the seemingly long-dead extra-terrestrial out of the ice and takes it back to the base, where it unfortunately springs back to life and escapes.

Soon enough, they discover that the alien has the ability to imitate other life forms by absorbing their bodies. Knowing this, they begin to suspect that one or more people in the team may in fact be the alien in disguise. They understandably become paranoid, get the flamethrowers out and wait impatiently for one of their teammates to suddenly sprout tentacles out of their head or grow a massive mouth in their belly; they are not kept waiting long, I must tell you.

It all sounds so hair-raisingly suspenseful, but I’m sorry to report that it isn’t; genuine suspense arrives only in brief spurts here and there, and then quickly buggers off, leaving us more bored to death than chilled to the bone. This is opposed to Carpenter’s version, a film so ridiculously suspenseful that 1982 audiences were said to have left the cinema with their fingernails no longer intact. The unrelenting tension and terror that Carpenter masterfully created back in ’82 is all but gone here, giving way to cheap scares and forced suspense that just doesn’t work.

There’s also the problem that this prequel is far too reliant on surprisingly crappy-looking CGI. This is of course utilised when the nasty creature reveals its hideous self, all tentacles and dogs’ heads and whatnot, resulting in a not-so-scary monster that looks a little too much like a villain from one of the “Resident Evil” video games. Carpenter’s version, on the other hand, famously relied on good old-fashioned practical effects; these infamously grisly prosthetics are still terrifying to this day, most likely because the revolting creature they helped create was an actual physical presence, as opposed to something created on a computer screen and superimposed into a scene.

I apologise if I’m comparing the two films too much, but the prequel did sort of have this coming, what with how closely it seems to deliberately set itself to Carpenter’s version – it even has the same title, for crying out loud. I will, however, say this one thing in the prequel’s favour: audiences unfamiliar with Carpenter’s version will probably enjoy this prequel much more than those who are familiar with it. Those of us in the latter category will most likely compare too much, which will never, ever work in the prequel’s favour.

3/10