Sunday, March 4, 2012

Screaming Sunday: The Thing (2011)

Sati's movie rating - 62/100
Plot: Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region of Antarctica for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up. When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew's pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish. "The Thing" serves as a prelude to John Carpenter's classic 1982 film of the same name.
The heroes: The team of scientists and Kate Lloyd, played by lovely Winstead, who is actually quite strong and admirable horror movie heroine. I have not noticed her doing anything idiotic during the course of the film which is admirable. I'm omitting the fact that when the expedition stumbles across the alien organism that was frozen for 100,000 years instead of just leaving this in the ice and getting the hell away from there, which is what I would do, they can't wait for examine it. Oh, by all freaking means do so.
The antagonists: The Thing, creature from space that is able to imitate all the organic tissues and make itself look like anyone in the research team. It can't however replicate non-organic materials, like for example teeth fillings, which will be a basis for one suspense filled scene.
What makes it so great? The fact the creators actually respect previous films from the franchise and spent a lot of time an effort in making everything tie-in nicely with previous films. The effects also use old tricks and CGI was used only to fix the blemishes - the visual effects are actually really cool, despite mixing old and new ways and not just relying on newest technologies, or perhaps precisely because of doing so.
Best scene: The ending which ties the film to Carpenter's movie.
Oh-oh something's not right line: "The cells aren't dead"
Scare factor: - 2/5 evil pumpkins - The film has tension and few jump scares, but it's not especially frightening. It is however quite engaging.
Gore factor: - 3/5 bloody Leatherfaces - plenty of bizarre gore moments, when the Thing is basically bursting out of its human disguise. Those scenes are mostly more grotesque than gross, but if you are squeamish you may be affected.
Is there a twist? It's a film where absolutely anyone can be an antagonist, so it's basically a series of twists when we find out who is the Thing at the given moment.
Hint: Watch this one first and then see 1982 one again.
Unsuitable for: People who live in isolated locations surrounded by snow.
Repercussions: Checking if people who always wear earrings have them on.

5 comments:

  1. See, I hated this one. But I am a big fan of the original ( I know this is not a remake). But in the 82 version the alien was scarier, and more realistic. The CGI version did nothing for me.

    The funny thing is I stormed out of the theatre in disgust at how bad this film was and completely missed the tie in to the 80s one... DOH!

    Great and original review matey

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    1. Oh, that's awful the ending was the best part! I agree about the creature though, I think that this movie featured it so much made it much less scary.

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  2. It’s no great thing, just a better Thing than expected. It’s not incredibly scary but has the same tense and paranoid feel that the Carpenter version went for, and it works in a way. The problem is that on own it’s own, it doesn’t really work. Good review Sati.

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    1. Yeah, it's a decent flick and nice prequel, I agree about the sense of paranoia it was pretty good throughout the film, although not as good as in 1982 film.

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  3. I tend to agree with you here. The latest Thing remake was entertaining but not as good as Carpenter's film. It was nice to see some additional story info but the mystery of Carpenter's film helped its suspense.

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