While it was not very well received commercially or critically when it first came out in 1982, The Thing is now remembered as one of the best horror movies ever made, if not the greatest horror movie of all time, period. Thus, I can understand why fans of director John Carpenter’s paranoia-fueled creature feature masterpiece like me were a little apprehensive when it was announced that Universal Studios was developing a prequel that would come out in October 2011. However, what I could not understand, after finally seeing the film myself one night at a friend’s house, was why people responded with such overwhelming negativity to it.
I cannot say that I personally love director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s movie about a shapeshifting alien wreaking havoc in Antarctica and even agree with some of the points that even the harshest reviews state, but I still found it to be an effectively thrilling and competently crafted extension of the original classic (which itself is sort of a remake and, by definition, one of the best horror movie remakes there is). After I saw that it was trending on Netflix, I thought I would revisit 2011’s The Thing and see if I still felt the same way about it more than a decade later and, in some ways, I do. Before you decide to banish me to your own personal version of horror fan jail, at least give me the chance to explain my argument — starting with, perhaps, the film’s most notorious point of contention.
