The Thing (Universal)
Rated R for strong creature violence and gore, disturbing images, and language.
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olsen Agbaje, Paul Braunstein, Trond Espen Seim, and Kim Bubbs.
Written by Eric Heisserer, based on the short story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr.
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
GRADE: B+
REVIEW:
I've never been a big gory movie fan, and I always avoided horror films as a kid because, you know...like most kids, I had an aversion to being scared. As I grew into adulthood, I got over my fears, but never quite got over my aversion to movies with buckets o' blood in them. When John Carpenter's The Thing was released in 1982, it was considered one of the grossest movies of its time. The latest version of The Thing does a lot to keep up with Carpenter's version, with some really scary moments.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as paleontologist Dr. Kate Lloyd, recruited by a misogynist Norwegian scientist named Dr. Halvorsen (Ulrich Thomsen) to accompany his research team in Antarctica following their discovery of an alien spaceship beneath the ice. Kate is recruited because the Norwegians have also discovered an alien life form encased in solid ice, and they want her to do some lab work on the critter, which they assume is frozen to death (yeah, right).
Well, guess what? The monster isn't dead. It eventually breaks free of its ice block and begins to "consume" members of the science team...or is it? Kate soon discovers that the alien isn't eating her Norwegian buddies, but is actually transforming itself into genetically-identical versions of the humans in order to sneak around among them, thus making it easier to knock them off.
As the human survivors learn of the alien's abilities, they become increasingly paranoid about which one of them is human and which one is the fake, and begin to turn on each other until just about all of them are wiped out; either by themselves, or by the monster, who has the tendency to burst out from under the skin of its human facade and engage in several gory killing sprees.
Soon, all that are left are Kate, an American helicopter pilot (Joel Edgerton) and Dr. Halvorsen (or perhaps a version of him). Kate must brave her own doubts, the monster and the Arctic cold in order to survive and perhaps get rid of the alien for good.
The Thing is pretty good horror fare if you like violent, jump-out-of-your-seat moments that will cause you and your date to cling to each other as you toss your popcorn in utter terror. It's a true science fiction horror movie, right up there with James Cameron's Aliens and Carpenter's original.
Winstead and her cast mates do an adequate job of creating a very scary environment, as does newcomer director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., who did a masterful job of attaching his film to the 1982 Carpenter version.
Keep in mind, The Thing (2011) is not a remake, but a prequel, so if you've seen the 1982 version, you (kind of) already know what happened to the Halvorsen scientific team.
The Thing is one of those movies that uses a lot of tried-and-true horror cliches, like foreshadowing, the smartalec who jumps out and yells "BOO!" just when you think the monster is going to strike, and the obligatory "Oh, it's just you" moment right before another monster attack.
Even with these worn-out devices, you still jump out of your seat, which makes The Thing pretty good, yet pretty scary movie.
One parental note: The Thing is rated R for a reason. Do not bring the kids, and if gory horror movies give you nightmares, you may want to avoid it yourself.
