If you think that The Thing is a remake of the John Carpenter film of the same name, you are wrong! The film, released in 2011, is a prequel to the film adaptation of the novel Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr. which Carpenter worked on in 1982. This time, the director appointed to handle this project was Matthijs van Heijningen. Is this Dutch director can match Carpenter’s shrewdness in working on horror films?
The prequel movie The Thing took place in 1982 when a group of Norwegian researchers discovered a spaceship in the middle of Antarctica. Dr. Sander Halvorson and his assistant, Adam Finch, recruited a paleontologist named Kate Lloyd to help them investigate the aircraft. However, it was not only the plane they had found, but an alien buried in the ice. The research team finally succeeded in bringing the ice pack containing the aliens and taking tissue samples. Seeing this success, they began to party. At the same time, Derek, the co-pilot who took Sander, Kate, and Adam to Antarctica, watched the aliens they brought rise and flee. The blood party begins!
It is undeniable that the Western film industry prefers a combination of murder, blood, and monsters than ghosts or spirits who decorate horror films from the East. I don’t really like Hollywood horror films. Typically, Hollywood films are only aware of sadistic scenes and tense musical instruments to frighten the audience. However, there is something different with this film.
Synopsis The Thing
About ten minutes passed and the film managed to make me scream (silently), “Mary Elizabeth Winstead” The beautiful actress who graced the film Live Free or Die Hard and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World finally re-took the role in the horror film. The acting and expression of fear that he brought in the film Final Destination 3 and a number of other horror films were present again in the character of paleontologist Kate Lloyd.
Beyond Winstead’s presence, the power of horror films lies in the tense atmosphere and scenes that make viewers’ hearts leap. Unfortunately, the dose that is served in The Thing is very small. Scenes that make viewers feel excited only feel at the beginning of the film. When the alien has begun to manifest itself, and the action full of blood and screams begins, the tension gradually recedes and is replaced with disgust. The alien form described by the CGI looks both disgusting and frightening, especially when shown a number of long tentacles capable of attacking characters from a distance.
