The
Thing
Rated R. Our Ratings: V-4 ;L -1 ; S/N –1.
Running time: 1 hour 42 min.
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Don’t mess with Kate! © 2011 Universal Pictures |
My heart is in anguish within me,
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
Fear and trembling come upon me,
and horror overwhelms me.
Psalms 55:4
Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s film has been called a prequel
to John Carpenter’s 1982 film be
cause it ends where Carpenter’s began, with a helicopter chase of a
dog. The latter’s film was an ex
cellent remake of the 1951 adaptation of a short story by the then greatest
of science fiction editor John W. Campbell, Jr. Even though it was 60 years
ago, I well remember the suspense and fright while watching that film about
the discovery of a crashed space ship and the body of an alien frozen in
the ice. The new version, like Carpenter’s, moves the scene from the
Arctic to Antarctica, and boasts far more sophisticated science and gruesome
special effects—the gory, blood splattered alien’s taking over
of the bodies of its victims—so it is not for the squeamish.
As with virtually all horror films, most of the characters exist so as to
be the first among the killed, and in this film transformed into a host for
the aliens. Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s paleontologist Kate Lloyd will
survive to the end, but will any others? The incredible special effects are
both fascinating and stomach-churning to watch, the alien at first looking
like a combination of a crab and spider, and then as they take over a human
body, morphing into something hideous, which we are only too glad to see
being burned by a flame thrower. The director succeeds in keeping us on the
edge of our seats, as the various characters poke around in the dark in search
of their enemies. The ambiguous ending reveals how are times have changed,
the original version, made when film censorship was still in effect, ending
with the total destruction of the alien. Unlike the Day the Earth Stood Still
and a few other sci-fi films, The Thing has no moral or message to impart.
It was created for the sheer pleasure of scaring audiences, and in this limited
mission the new version succeeds.
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