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75Yes, it is derivative, but in a year in which films from the 1980s are getting needless remakes seemingly every other week, this one stands out as a rare one that works. That's a good "Thing."
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75While I wish van Heijningen's Thing weren't quite so in lust with the '82 model, it works because it respects that basic premise. And it exhibits a little patience, doling out its ickiest, nastiest moments in ways that make them stick.
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75It's a solid, entertaining monster movie that, at its best, recalls not only its three decades-old namesake but Alien as well.
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70I'm delighted to tell you that the new Thing was made by people who understand what the horror audience wants and don't treat it like a bunch of brain-dead children. Mirabile freakin' dictu.
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63A solid sci-fi/horror hybrid, but this iceman doesn't deliver enough to chew on.
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63It's no great thing, just a better Thing than expected.
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63The basic story is identical, and when there are fraught, climactic opportunities for the movie to make a gutsy departure, it passes up the chance.
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63This version of The Thing, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., provides such graphic and detailed views of the creature that we are essentially reduced to looking at special effects, and being aware that we are. Think how little you ever really saw in the first "Alien" movie, and how frightening it was.
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Oct 16, 201160As written by Eric Heisserer (Final Destination 5), the new Thing lacks much wit or self-awareness. It's more of a "final girl" formula film, but on ice. Still, why did it take 29 years to create this solid double-feature? And will they unfreeze Russell for a trilogy?
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60These filmmakers got halfway there, but Carpenter's genius was about more than just a look.
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60In terms of scares, this old-fashioned Thing is better than most new things.
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58The other thing The Thing has got going for it is a welcome hint of dour Scandinavian sensibility sneaked in by director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. whenever there's a pause in the unexceptional antics of aliens consuming humans.
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Oct 16, 201150Fails to replicate Carpenter's blue-collar humor or carefully modulated suspense.
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50Misshapen, malodorous and firing its grubby tentacles across the room in a feeding frenzy, The Thing reminded me of a roomful of journalists immediately after someone announces Open Bar. The movie's victims disappear like cocktail peanuts and without a whole lot more significance.
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50Part horror film, part space thriller and all gore-fest, the movie ends up being a lot like its protagonist: a mess of a monster that stretches itself too thin to scare much.
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50It's an imperfect facsimile, guilty of borrowing too many ideas from the earlier film, and then executing them with differing results.
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50One gut-busting death after another, terror giving way to tedium. Your call.
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Oct 13, 201150The best thing about The Thing, the third - and the least interesting - big-screen adaptation of the John W. Campbell Jr. short story "Who Goes There?", is its closing credits.
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50You can tell a lot about the film from its rough handling of the materials supplied by its predecessor, using these commonalities both to identify the bond between the two and signal how much further it's willing to push things.
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50Heijningen doesn't display the instinct of the best Hollywood action directors to give the audience what it craves at the big moments, except for a few gory in-your-face shots.
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50Far less chilling than versions from 1951 and 1982, Universal's latest take on The Thing at least has a strong lead thesp in Mary Elizabeth Winstead, recruited for the studio's bid to turn a tale of ice-cold macho paranoia into a beauty-vs.-beast shocker a la "Alien."
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50Heijningen's The Thing is tightly paced, has enough imaginative horror to satisfy even the most jaded gorehound, and never strays too far from its source, so why do you come away from it feeling like it was the runner-up in a daylight nightmare festival?
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50While this version, listed as a "prequel," has a few gross-out moments, it lacks any sense of warmth. Which might be an odd criticism of a horror movie set in Antarctica, but there you have it.
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45There are some body-horror gross-outs if you're into that sort of thing, but mostly what you get are a bunch of too-obvious leftovers from the "Alien" stockroom, including a selection of moist innards, slimy tendons, dripping fangs and the like.
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42For a film that takes place in such a cold locale, it all feels awfully warmed-over.
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40This debut feature from Matthijs van Heijningen is as stiff as the Antarctic tundra. Where the earlier film pulsed with precisely calibrated paranoia and distinctly drawn characters, this inarticulate replay unfolds as mechanistically as a video game.
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Oct 12, 201140Offers audiences a similar-but-not-the-same mix of effects, existentialism and creepy body horror while forgetting the things like character, humor and tension that made Carpenter's take on the same material so memorable past the initial fearsome fluid flesh sequences.
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38There is absolutely nothing in this prequel/remake that improves on the first film or negates it in any way. If you've never seen The Thing - and you really should - stick with the genuine 1982 article and skip this elaborate act of mimicry.
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Oct 13, 201138Here's the thing about the new The Thing. It isn't as satisfying as the old "The Thing." And it's nowhere near as enthralling as the vintage "Thing," which inspired every other "Thing" to follow.
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38It's an infuriatingly static picture - actors walking around when they should be running, ruminating when they should be panicking, generally failing to convey fear and pick up the pace.
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25This Thing is purely for the gorehounds, and they aren't likely to leave impressed.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 56 out of 79
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Mixed: 13 out of 79
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Negative: 10 out of 79
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10How do you replicate the horror of John Carpenterâ