Horror Movie Month: The Thing

The Stars: Joel Edgerton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

The Plot: An American paleontologist joins a group of Norwegian scientists in discovering a space craft and an alien life force frozen in the terrain of Antarctica. A.K.A. A prequel to John Carpenter's seminal horror classic of the same name.

The Scares: It's nowhere near as scary as the 1982 version, which is one of the scariest movies ever made, but that's not to say it's without merit. I was hesitant about this movie (although I love me some Joel Edgerton) because I thought it was a remake. Remember in the Carpenter version, when the group stumble upon the camp of the dead Norwegian scientists?? Well, this movie is about them. So, a prequel, I'm okay with. It can still steal from the original without blatantly ripping it off. This version isn't very original though. It's pretty much the same old thing, just not as scary. Horror movies from the 70s and early 80s were scary because they needed to set a tone and use a lot of different things in order to be scary. They didn't have the big budgets and special effects that exist today (and the creature effects in this version are awful). If anything, this prequel may get a few people from the younger generation interested in watching John Carpenter's version for the first time, and that's definitely a good thing. You can't argue with results like that.

The Body Count: Let's put it this way: only one person survives.

The Grade: C