Though it had remarkably gory and believable make-up effects, it’s not as great as I had expected
Before I try to catch the upcoming The Thing prequel later this year starring the ever-gorgeous Mary Elizabeth Winstead, I decided to catch the original 1982 film. Though sadly, after watching the film, I can say that I’m not as thrilled to see the prequel as before.
“An American scientific expedition to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic is interrupted by a group of seemingly mad Norwegians pursuing and shooting a dog. The helicopter pursuing the dog crashes leaving no explanation for the chase. During the night, the dog mutates and attacks other dogs in the cage and members of the team try to investigate. The team soon realises that an alien life-form with the ability to assume the appearance of the people it kills is on the loose and they don’t know who may already have been taken infected by it” -written by Goth at imdb.com
The main problem I had with this movie was the action, or the lack thereof. There’s nothing much going on except someone dying every 10 minutes, and I can’t say that the way the cast died was inventive or shocking. This being a thriller, I imagined the characters engaging in more combat against the alien than what I saw in the movie. Some scenes try to build up momentum, but by the end of it all, your excitement ebbs and you won’t care who dies next.
Another issue I had was the boring cast. None of them were interesting enough for me to actually care about them. Some kind of background information or character development would’ve been nice. Instead, director John Carpenter isolates us in the vast land of Antarctica where we have nothing much to see. The overall acting was okay though none of them actually caught my attention throughout the film.
Draggy parts aside, there are still other things that was nice about this movie. The most noticeable is the wonderful make-up and gory effects of the alien life from. It wasn’t one of those cheap blood and make-up you could see during the time this film was made (about 19 years ago). It was actually believable. However, it seems to have been more creepy than it was scary.
And don’t even remind me of the ending. All I could say is that, it is HORRIBLE. I could’ve accepted what happened in the end but they could’ve at least made it more interesting. Instead, Carpenter prematurely ends the movie with a text saying “John Carpenter’s The Thing”.
After reading a lot of good reviews about this movie, I was VERY disappointed to find out that it was far from what I had anticipated. Nevertheless, I still have high hopes on the upcoming prequel, but I’ll definitely lower my expectations by the time it’s out.
GRADE: C
I agreed with the minority
External Ratings:
RottenTomatoes: 80% Fresh, 7.1/10 Rating
Internet Movie Database: 8.2/10 User Rating
Metacritic: N/A
