Although this one takes place a few days prior to the Carpenter remake and we get all this tied together at the end, was this prequel actually necessary? No, that was the mystery behind the first Norwegian groups disastrous meeting with the creature from out there. That's what the original Bill Lancaster screenplay did and if we'd been intended to see what'd happened to them we'd have seen it only in snippets. It's much better to use our imaginations as to what happened when the American's arrive at the Norwegian camp. "They're not Swedish Mac, they're Norwegian" kept ringing in my head throughout the film which is abundant with messy computer effects though what Rob Bottin was able to create back in '82 you felt like you were watching a documentary. Two women abound in this story and we long for an all male cast which is what it needed for the strong sense of paranoia. It's loud and icky but come on so was Carpenter's though his was masterfully executed. Hollywood needs to stop shoveling our remakes and prequels and start adapting novels more often. This "Thing" gets a C-
Review of The Thing
