To celebrate Halloween Live for Films is having a horror movie review each night in the 31 Days of Horror. You can see last years 31 days here. You can be involved by sending me your review of a horror film – new, old, good, bad, depressing, funny, disgusting, psychological. As long as it can be classed as a horror then you can send it over to me at phil@liveforfilms.com
Click here to see all the reviews for 2011′s 31 Days of Horror.
Today Leslie Simpson reviews the prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Okay, so straight off the bat it’s fair to say I’m something of a fan of John Carpenter’s The Thing. It was the first 18 certificate film I saw at the cinema – I was completely unaware of what I’d paid for when I bought the ticket because I was dragged along on a whim by my horror geek cohorts and was shaking like a dog crapping razor-blades out of fear of being refused entry.
The Thing had the same brain melting, eyes-on-stalks effect that Star Wars had when I saw that years earlier as a wee nipper, (yes I remember when it was simply called ‘Star Wars’, and episode numbers were merely a splinter in the mind’s eye. Thank you Mr. Luc-ass).
I’d still argue that those two films are among the finest examples of genre film-making created in my lifetime.
I’m not, however, a fan of the profit motivated remake culture we’re currently experiencing. Remakes are all well and good; in theatre we call them revivals. Shakespeare and the classics are ‘revived’ or ‘remade’ year on year. But most theatre revivals are generally motivated by social relevance – by an understanding that the material is reflective of the world situation at the time.
Of course, Carpenter’s The Thing was itself a remake of the Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks 1951 film The Thing From Another World – and both films were adapted from the sci-fi novella ‘Who Goes There?
Of the two films, Carpenter’s version is the more faithful adaptation.
So as a remake, was Carpenter’s film relevant?
Carpenter was no stranger to using sex to sell his films. Jamie Lee Curtis and former wife Adrienne Barbeau featured heavily in his early career to great effect. Not only were they both great actors, but they added sexual tension, which not only created drama but brought in the video renting juvenile fanboys.
The Thing on the other hand was an all male cast.
It’s not as though the source material or concept demanded a men only policy. Nyby’s original had Margaret Sheridan as the feisty Nicholson, and that worked a treat.
So, why? The decision was deliberate, and a masterstroke of social relevance. A dozen isolated blokes equals sexual frustration and homo-erotic machismo. Factor in a hostile enemy that can hide and incubate inside any living being and you have paranoia and Peckinpah-esque male emasculation. The film was made during the AIDS epidemic, a sexually transmitted disease that exploded in a wave of unfettered panic through the promiscuous ’80s – especially among gay men. By the time the film went into production almost everyone with a sexual history (of any preference) was a suspect – even light petting between fledgling lovers was a no-go, until a blood test gave the all clear.
That aside, The Thing was simply a great film in my opinion. Intense and action packed, a wonderful ensemble cast headed up by the majestic Kurt Russell, and some of the most inventive and timeless practical creature effects from Rob Bottin that any filmgoer is likely to see. In fact if anyone has seen better before or since, then I’d like to hear about it. Screaming Mad George’s ‘Society’ perhaps? Close, but no cigar I’m afraid. I know some of the foremost special effects maestros of the current crop personally, and a humbling silence descends whenever Carpenter’s masterwork is mentioned.
The Thing 2011 isn’t a remake thankfully. I can only imagine the furore if the makers did attempt to remake The Thing. I suspect that the studios were aware of it too. And so, with a canny sleight of hand, what we’re treated to is a ‘prequel’.
We should be grateful, because in the current climate this is a close to a ‘fresh idea’ as we’re likely to get. It shares the same name as Carpenter’s film, which only serves to prove my point about the lack of imagination – and let’s face it, the remake cash cow simply must be milked, even if it has to be by subterfuge.
I won’t bother wasting your time or mine suggesting that there are metaphors to be gleaned from Heijninggen Jr’s film, because as far as I could see there weren’t any. It’s strictly ‘a cigar is just a cigar’ type film, and that’s one of the many reasons why it has little chance of staying fresh any longer than a bucket of popcorn.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s fun to be had. Truth be told, it’s not a bad film. It’s just not a particularly good film either. It’s not the best film I’ve seen this year, and it’s not likely to make my year end ‘best of’ list, whereas Carpenter’s film was far and away the best film I saw that year, and, as I’ve already mentioned, is still among the defining cinematic moments of my life.
The Thing 2011 tells the story of what happened at the Norwegian base. Conveniently for english speaking audiences there are four or five americans and a brit among their number, (OK, Joel Edgerton is an Aussie, but he plays an american, naturally) so there’s little need for subtitles. Hardly a Norwegian base at all really.
The fact that they throw a woman (or two) into the mix this time has little bearing on the film either way. Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes a decent fist of the role she’s given, which is about the limit I can say for any of the cast.
Before I watched the film I was curious to know how they would get round the need to recruit american palaeontologist, played by Winstead, from the other side of the planet, when McReady’s scientific research base, Outpost 31, was less than forty miles away. The answer was, like the film as a whole, unconvincing but not far fetched.
There was a clever nod to the source novella when we arrive at the base and Men at Work’s ‘Who Can It Be Now?’ is playing on the radio. I admit, that brought a smile to my face. But other than that, the script is devoid of the wit that pervaded Carpenter’s film.
For the dedicated film geek a good time can be had joining the dots to the (hereafter known as the) sequel. The axe in the wall? Check. The melty two-headed thingie? Check.
But even here there are some disappointments. For those very familiar with ‘the sequel’, there’s an iconic frozen corpse – you know the one – that may as well be footage they found in a bin, and shoehorned into the plot because they had to.
The filmmakers have gone to some effort to recreate the look of Carpenter’s film, which I suppose is admirable. They even used the same Albertus MT font for the credit sequence, and there are hints of the original Morricone score at the beginning and the end. But unlike the ‘sequel’, where the tension was unbearable at times, the 2011 model has none. The acting throughout was functional at best (with strictly NO exceptions), the photography was beset by ‘ooh, this is the scary bit, look how shakery the camera is’, victims and plot points were signposted from half a mile out, and worst of all… yep, you guessed it, The Thing itself is a disappointment. The effects are good – well above average. But gone is the wanton invention of Rob Bottin… and in comes, what? A fairly predictable creature. The new Thing ‘attacks’ it’s victim, and in much the same way each time. There’s an entire sequence where the ‘creature’ prowls the corridors looking for victims – yeah, I mean it. Once this thing has morphed, it stays morphed. If it wasn’t the Thing, I might say it was pretty good.
But it is, so it’s not.
Overall, it’s a decent film. I enjoyed it as a film in it’s own right. But next to The real Thing, it’s not even in the same galaxy. Of course, that’s just an opinion.
