THE THING (2011)
First time seeing it and last time seeing it. First, the good: While the effects look extremely CGI, the visual appearances of some of the creatures are creative and effectively unnerving; there's some pretty great scenery; and it's vaguely interesting to see the leadup to the events of Carpenter's movie, but honestly, that aspect ended up being way less intriguing in execution than I had hoped. However, there's really no reason to watch this movie unless maybe you have a big crush on Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, and Tormund Giantsbane from Game of Thrones (and hey, I hit the trifecta). This is a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 film (and not a spiritual prequel or anything; the last scene of this movie is the first scene of Carpenter's). However, Carpenter's movie was much more grounded and focused on the suspense and paranoia of the situation. Carpenter's Thing was scary because it was so adept at hiding, and it mostly only attacked when it was cornered or felt safe enough to do so. In the 2011 version, however, while there are some scenes of the Thing hiding in plain sight, it's much more prone to attacking. I didn't do the math, but I do believe the 2011 movie has way more action and attack scenes than Carpenter's. However, that doesn't necessarily make it better or more exciting. Carpenter doled out the attack scenes carefully, sparingly, and somewhat stingily - you never really knew when they would happen, so the surprise effect was very real. In the 2011 version, on the other hand, this Thing is attacking people left and right with very little provocation and we grow numb to it. In fact, the 2011 movie may be more influenced by Alien or Aliens than The Thing, and this may even have been on purpose; the filmmakers have said that they wanted Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character to be a Ripley (Sigourney Weaver's character) type. But just like this movie pales in comparison to Carpenter's The Thing, it also pales in comparison to the Alien films, if that's even what it was going for. It doesn't have the creeping dread of Alien and it doesn't have the action of Aliens. Plus, the whole climax of this movie even takes place on the Thing's spaceship, leaving the claustrophobic confines of the Antarctic outpost. Carpenter's Thing was patient, sly and cunning. This Thing is just a movie monster and there's very little suspense. This may only be of interest to fans of Carpenter's movie, to see the story done slightly differently, but anyone who hasn't seen Carpenter's should watch that instead of this one. And even fans of Carpenter's will probably just wish they were rewatching his instead. I sure did.
THE X-FILES: "ICE" (1993)
I have never seen anything X-Files related. No episodes, no movies. This is the first. And I dug it! It isn't the equal of Carpenter's movie, but it is a reverent homage, and it replicates the tension of the 1982 film better than the 2011 prequel did. With a TV budget the focus isn't on special effects. There's no body horror, no physical transformations, but we do get the paranoia and uncertainty of who's safe and who's infected. While I do love the special effects in Carpenter's film and the movie just wouldn't be the same without the gore and the transformation scenes, watching this X-Files episode right after watching the 2011 version of The Thing may serve as evidence that the 2011 filmmakers got the wrong impression about what made Carpenter's film such an effective movie.
WHO GOES THERE? (1938)
So this short story, by John W. Campbell Jr., inspired everything I've been watching and reviewing for the last few weeks, but mostly The Thing From Another World from 1951 and John Carpenter's The Thing from 1982. To start with, it barely resembles the 1951 movie outside of a cold setting (the North Pole in the movie, Antarctica in the story), an alien and a spaceship found in the ice, the alien getting thawed out, and the alien being not very nice. The only similarity the original movie has that Carpenter's doesn't is the way that the protagonists use a form of electrocution against The Thing. Carpenter's movie, then, is much more clearly inspired by the story. Many of the characters' names are the same, the shapeshifting aspect is preserved, the flamethrower originated in the short story as a blowtorch, and we have quite a few of the same plot points. While I enjoyed the story, though, Carpenter's film packs a visual punch that the story can't match, even with some creatively descriptive passages. Some of the men in the short story (and it's all men, no women, just like in Carpenter's movie) effectively go insane, which would probably have been a reasonable response, but didn't happen in either film. Also, numerous times in the story, the men refer to each other as "birds", which always caught me off guard as a bit of slang I've never heard before, at least not to refer to males. I enjoyed the short story, but Carpenter took the good parts of it and ran with it. As could have been predicted, after these few weeks, Carpenter's version reigns supreme as the ultimate iteration of this tale! But if you want to read it, here you go: Who Goes There?
And finally, one last note: this short story, told from the point of view of Carpenter's Thing, has been recommended by several readers and it is excellent.
Up next: OK! As much as I love The Thing, I've been watching and writing about it in some form or another for weeks! Time for something new. Back to the AFI list, with #86, The Picture of Dorian Gray from 1945.
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