Recently I got a free copy of Toronto produced movie The Thing, which was released in 2011 as a prequel to the 1982 B movie of the same name. (Originally, The Thing was about some explorers in Antarctica who discover a frozen being that comes to life, and they end up having to fight it.)
A team of Norwegian come upon a strange discovery. Cut to later on, where a researcher named Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) meets Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) who invites her on an expedition. Upon exploring the inside of an Antarctic cave, they come upon a strange spacecraft. Outside they discover an alien body frozen nearby. After bringing the creature back, they sample some DNA.
That evening, while nobody suspects anything, the ice melts and the alien is on its way to thawing out. As a man on the team heads out, he notices something has been sneaking around. He checks out the creature, and it escapes. He manages to get back before the story decides to kill him off, and he spreads the word. Everyone is surprised this creature has escaped so they head off to find it.
They do that only after team member Henrik (Jo Adrian Haavind) gets killed off, and they attempt to kill the creature. However bullets aren’t very lethal to it, so they set it on fire, and unlike the monster from the original, it dies faster. Or one would think.
After Kate finds some strange samples of dried blood in a shower, she warns her colleagues that the creature isn’t dead yet. She later explains to the team that the alien has possibly made a replica of a team member. Surely enough chaos ensues.
This entire movie was a mix of good and bad. It had its moments of horror and Winstead was amazing with her acting, but the story needed a little extra work in development. It was an okay movie in my opinion, but the original is certainly better — even if it was a bit mediocre itself.
