The Thing

Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

2011 • R • English • 102 min.

The Thing (1982), AKA John Carpenter’s The Thing, is one of the greatest sci-fi/horror movies of all time. The Thing (2011) is... well, it’s a sci-fi/horror movie. Despite the title, it isn’t a remake of the 1982 movie, it’s a prequel (though the plot is similar enough to the ’82 Thing that no one would blame you for calling it a remake). Prequels are tough, and thirty-years-after-the-fact prequels are even tougher — filmmaking styles and technology change a lot over thirty years, and this movie, despite a good cast led by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, just doesn’t capture the weirdness and paranoia that make The Thing (1982) so iconic. Maybe a sequel (with its own title!) would have worked better?

Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen