It's an older movie (1982) that has "state of the art" practical horror effects so it actually stands up really well in the age of CGI. And it stars a young Kurt Russel. It my favorite horror/monster movie. I hope you enjoy it!
Only trust reviews of people you know and whose taste you know. Like, I have never seen the NY Post give a horror film above 3 1/2 stars, but I'm sure you and I can agree there are some 4s and 5s out there.
The Thing prequel is...different from Carpenter's. The writers obviously love the Carpenter one so you can see a lot of reference to it, and the effects are pretty fun for being mostly CGI. The cast is actually pretty decent and although it fails to capture the tension and paranoia of the original, there's a reason for that (see if you can pick up on it through the movie) and it still works quite well. My only complaint is Amalgamated Dynamics actually did all practical effects for it and the studio decided to go with CGI later in the production. Watch the movie, then watch some of the AD videos on Youtube about the original effects they did. It's mindblowing how much different the movie could have been.
All that said, I really like the remake. It'll never meet or exceed Carpenter's vision, but it knew what it was and it knew the story it wanted to tell, and I think that it's a much better movie for it. Give it a shot and let me know what you thought about it.
Thank you for the recommendation. I just watched the 2011 version and your description was spot on. Like you dsaid,not as good as the original but it was enjoyable for what it was, and it felt like a good homage. Plot wise, I loved that they immediately got out the flamethrowers and just started roasting the alien as soon as it showed itself to be evil. I also really loved the fact that all along I thought this was a simple remake, but it was actually a prequel! It ends with the possessed dog being chased by the helicopter...which is how the original starts. Hell its been some years, I think I have to watch the original now.
Please elaborate on what you mean by the reason the movie lacked the paranoia of the 1st. You mean the whole thing with fillings and the earring?
And thanks again for the suggestion, as a fan of the original I thought it was well worth a watch. It means nothing but I have added you to my whitelist :)
So I always felt that the original was very well saturated with a subtext of tension well before the Thing makes its appearance in the kennels, like how petty the guys are to each other over playing music in the kitchen and such. Adding in an alien threat just amplifies the feeling and seriously, even with a blood test that works, how are you going to trust anybody who leaves your sight for even a few minutes? Blood test them every time? Plus simple nuances like Norris' shadow on the wall when the dog visits his room, or only having the sound of the keys dropping to clue you into who got into the blood cabinet and how they did it keep everything tense until the Thing makes an appearance to alleviate some of that tension. You've essentially got that constant tension and the question of who is on who's side from the moment the movie starts and this runs all the way thru the film, and the ending does not help make it any less tense.
A friend of mine pointed out to me that in the prequel the Thing just tries to take over victims as fast and recklessly as it can and doesn't play the cloak and dagger stealth games of Carpenter's movies. That was a holy shit moment for me because he was dead right about it: appearing in the helicopter (one of my fave scenes in that entire movie), switching targets and attacking the other dude in the hallway when it was initially chasing Kate; the Thing just wanted to assimilate into the native lifeforms as quick as it could so it can begin its takeover and move on to the next planet. And it's that speed of encounter, that willingness to attack in large groups or assimilate in the hallway instead of dragging its victim into cover, that made it feel less cautious and less meticulous of a monster and, in my opinion, less tense of a movie. There is a small measure of "stranger in a strange land" alienation due to the language barrier of English and Norwegian individuals, but I don't feel that measures up to the boredom-enhanced antagonism of the US base in Carpenter's film.
Side note, btw: There was just a Kickstarter campaign (ended now) for a full-length version of John Campbell's novel "Who Goes There?" under the title of "Frozen Hell." This was the basis for the Thing movie and apparently a biographer found the unpublished full manuscript while researching thru Campbell's work and notes. Not sure when it's getting released but might prove to be very interesting since I always felt Who Goes There seemed very abrupt and forgettable. Also, whitelisted you too, TY!
Holy shit buddy, you're like a The Thing scholar. I love the amount of thought you've put into this. The fact that you can reference the shadow scene with the dog going into Norris' room, I am impressed. Such a good scene. I hadn't watched it in awhile so my memory was a bit hazy and that was well worth a watching again.
I just finished the original movie and I absolutely get what you mean about the monster being more secretive than it does in 2011 one. Maybe it learned from its experiences and figured out it had to stealth takeover in order to get out of Antarctica?
That was a really fun revisit of this movie for me. And I probably never would have watched the 2011 one if not for this giveaway. Its cool that there are fellow The Thing fans here on steamgifts (who know a lot more about the movies than I do) and this giveaway has been way more interesting than I could have imagined. Thanks for taking the time to type all that out, I liked your insight, cheers to you fellow fan of The Thing
The Thing was the only movie to ever scare me twice - first time was when I was really young, like 8 or 9, watched it on TV with my dad. It was a crappy little B+W TV and it kept cutting out when the Thing appeared, so my little kid imagination supplied the monster when I tried to sleep that night. Fast forward to high school, watched it again and the chest scene and the blood test both made me jump that time around. I think it's because of it scaring me twice that I love it so much.
And yeah, I wholly believe the monster learned from its mistakes at the Norwegian base and went stealth at the American base. That moves it from being an opportunistic predator to an intelligent strategist and I swear that's an absolutely terrifying scenario.
Side note: watching YouTube vids while eating dinner. What came up in my Recommended feed? A video about a Thing creature breakdown and - not even exaggerating - a video for the Amalgamated Dynamics creature tests for the Thing prequel. Outside of writing with you here on SG, I haven't looked up the Thing, haven't Googled it, haven't even talked out loud about it. I find this simple YouTube recommendation far more terrifying than any Hollywood monster.
I can easily just chalk it up to coincidence due to something like Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or some other frequency illusion. But on the other hand, one day a few months back, I read some top 10 list on my phone about unreleased movies. Fast forward a few hours, I get home and I'm watching YouTube on my Xbox and one of the recommend vids was for unreleased movies, so I watch the video and it is literally the video version of the article I read, the exact same movies and, more to the point, I noticed the narrator used the same phrases that stood out to me when I was reading the article.
Now I know there's people out there that are much more knowledgeable than I who can explain about the algorithms out there that predict and recommend what we see based on our interests and previous choices, but repetition of these incidents moves it away from coincidence and more into the realm of intelligent design. Like I'm totally cool with that, targeted marketing introduces you to things you're apt to want and buy that you may not have known about otherwise. But if it does indeed read our SG conversations and our forum posts and whatnot, if it does look at more specific things than our social media and Google searches and website visits (which are all public data), that's where it starts getting concerning to me.
Anyway, I re-read all this and realized there's no way to discuss these things without sounding like a conspiracy theorist or a total nutjob, and my initial impulse is to say "But I'm NOT a conspiracy theorist," but that's EXACTLY what a conspiracy theorist would say. So I think I've effectively painted myself into a corner, but at least I gave myself a good chuckle while doing it.
So back to The Thing: did you ever read the Dark Horse comics series? They were...pretty not great, unfortunately. Not "Thing 2 screenplay" levels of bad but they had so much untapped potential. If you're interested in checking them out, just hit up readcomiconline.to and search for The Thing from Another World.
You are welcome, my dude. Sorry it took awhile, sgtools showed you had an unredeemed game (trashville or something) and I wasn't sure what to do, so I finally decided fuck it, who cares? and sent the key. I hope you enjoy it, buddy :)
That is strange about Trashville, I can see the game on my steam app, but I tried looking at my steam profile and it's not there. Just now I installed the game and played it for a few minutes to see what would happen, but it still doesn't show up on my profile. I wonder if it's got something to do with the fact that it's been removed from steam? Anyway, I guess that's why it's a "well-known false positive" on sgtools!
Thanks for the GA chance!!! I've heard The Thing is a cult classic. I'll have to check it out :D Thanks for the recommendation.
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It's an older movie (1982) that has "state of the art" practical horror effects so it actually stands up really well in the age of CGI. And it stars a young Kurt Russel. It my favorite horror/monster movie. I hope you enjoy it!
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Your thoughts on the Thing sequel from a few years back?
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Honestly when it came out I read some bad reviews and avoided it. Now I'm thinking I should go back and give it a chance.
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Only trust reviews of people you know and whose taste you know. Like, I have never seen the NY Post give a horror film above 3 1/2 stars, but I'm sure you and I can agree there are some 4s and 5s out there.
The Thing prequel is...different from Carpenter's. The writers obviously love the Carpenter one so you can see a lot of reference to it, and the effects are pretty fun for being mostly CGI. The cast is actually pretty decent and although it fails to capture the tension and paranoia of the original, there's a reason for that (see if you can pick up on it through the movie) and it still works quite well. My only complaint is Amalgamated Dynamics actually did all practical effects for it and the studio decided to go with CGI later in the production. Watch the movie, then watch some of the AD videos on Youtube about the original effects they did. It's mindblowing how much different the movie could have been.
All that said, I really like the remake. It'll never meet or exceed Carpenter's vision, but it knew what it was and it knew the story it wanted to tell, and I think that it's a much better movie for it. Give it a shot and let me know what you thought about it.
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Thank you for the recommendation. I just watched the 2011 version and your description was spot on. Like you dsaid,not as good as the original but it was enjoyable for what it was, and it felt like a good homage. Plot wise, I loved that they immediately got out the flamethrowers and just started roasting the alien as soon as it showed itself to be evil. I also really loved the fact that all along I thought this was a simple remake, but it was actually a prequel! It ends with the possessed dog being chased by the helicopter...which is how the original starts. Hell its been some years, I think I have to watch the original now.
Please elaborate on what you mean by the reason the movie lacked the paranoia of the 1st. You mean the whole thing with fillings and the earring?
And thanks again for the suggestion, as a fan of the original I thought it was well worth a watch. It means nothing but I have added you to my whitelist :)
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So I always felt that the original was very well saturated with a subtext of tension well before the Thing makes its appearance in the kennels, like how petty the guys are to each other over playing music in the kitchen and such. Adding in an alien threat just amplifies the feeling and seriously, even with a blood test that works, how are you going to trust anybody who leaves your sight for even a few minutes? Blood test them every time? Plus simple nuances like Norris' shadow on the wall when the dog visits his room, or only having the sound of the keys dropping to clue you into who got into the blood cabinet and how they did it keep everything tense until the Thing makes an appearance to alleviate some of that tension. You've essentially got that constant tension and the question of who is on who's side from the moment the movie starts and this runs all the way thru the film, and the ending does not help make it any less tense.
A friend of mine pointed out to me that in the prequel the Thing just tries to take over victims as fast and recklessly as it can and doesn't play the cloak and dagger stealth games of Carpenter's movies. That was a holy shit moment for me because he was dead right about it: appearing in the helicopter (one of my fave scenes in that entire movie), switching targets and attacking the other dude in the hallway when it was initially chasing Kate; the Thing just wanted to assimilate into the native lifeforms as quick as it could so it can begin its takeover and move on to the next planet. And it's that speed of encounter, that willingness to attack in large groups or assimilate in the hallway instead of dragging its victim into cover, that made it feel less cautious and less meticulous of a monster and, in my opinion, less tense of a movie. There is a small measure of "stranger in a strange land" alienation due to the language barrier of English and Norwegian individuals, but I don't feel that measures up to the boredom-enhanced antagonism of the US base in Carpenter's film.
Side note, btw: There was just a Kickstarter campaign (ended now) for a full-length version of John Campbell's novel "Who Goes There?" under the title of "Frozen Hell." This was the basis for the Thing movie and apparently a biographer found the unpublished full manuscript while researching thru Campbell's work and notes. Not sure when it's getting released but might prove to be very interesting since I always felt Who Goes There seemed very abrupt and forgettable. Also, whitelisted you too, TY!
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Holy shit buddy, you're like a The Thing scholar. I love the amount of thought you've put into this. The fact that you can reference the shadow scene with the dog going into Norris' room, I am impressed. Such a good scene. I hadn't watched it in awhile so my memory was a bit hazy and that was well worth a watching again.
I just finished the original movie and I absolutely get what you mean about the monster being more secretive than it does in 2011 one. Maybe it learned from its experiences and figured out it had to stealth takeover in order to get out of Antarctica?
That was a really fun revisit of this movie for me. And I probably never would have watched the 2011 one if not for this giveaway. Its cool that there are fellow The Thing fans here on steamgifts (who know a lot more about the movies than I do) and this giveaway has been way more interesting than I could have imagined. Thanks for taking the time to type all that out, I liked your insight, cheers to you fellow fan of The Thing
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The Thing was the only movie to ever scare me twice - first time was when I was really young, like 8 or 9, watched it on TV with my dad. It was a crappy little B+W TV and it kept cutting out when the Thing appeared, so my little kid imagination supplied the monster when I tried to sleep that night. Fast forward to high school, watched it again and the chest scene and the blood test both made me jump that time around. I think it's because of it scaring me twice that I love it so much.
And yeah, I wholly believe the monster learned from its mistakes at the Norwegian base and went stealth at the American base. That moves it from being an opportunistic predator to an intelligent strategist and I swear that's an absolutely terrifying scenario.
Side note: watching YouTube vids while eating dinner. What came up in my Recommended feed? A video about a Thing creature breakdown and - not even exaggerating - a video for the Amalgamated Dynamics creature tests for the Thing prequel. Outside of writing with you here on SG, I haven't looked up the Thing, haven't Googled it, haven't even talked out loud about it. I find this simple YouTube recommendation far more terrifying than any Hollywood monster.
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That IS creepy. Coincidence? Or does Cyberdyne/Google monitor our SG conversations?
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I can easily just chalk it up to coincidence due to something like Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or some other frequency illusion. But on the other hand, one day a few months back, I read some top 10 list on my phone about unreleased movies. Fast forward a few hours, I get home and I'm watching YouTube on my Xbox and one of the recommend vids was for unreleased movies, so I watch the video and it is literally the video version of the article I read, the exact same movies and, more to the point, I noticed the narrator used the same phrases that stood out to me when I was reading the article.
Now I know there's people out there that are much more knowledgeable than I who can explain about the algorithms out there that predict and recommend what we see based on our interests and previous choices, but repetition of these incidents moves it away from coincidence and more into the realm of intelligent design. Like I'm totally cool with that, targeted marketing introduces you to things you're apt to want and buy that you may not have known about otherwise. But if it does indeed read our SG conversations and our forum posts and whatnot, if it does look at more specific things than our social media and Google searches and website visits (which are all public data), that's where it starts getting concerning to me.
Anyway, I re-read all this and realized there's no way to discuss these things without sounding like a conspiracy theorist or a total nutjob, and my initial impulse is to say "But I'm NOT a conspiracy theorist," but that's EXACTLY what a conspiracy theorist would say. So I think I've effectively painted myself into a corner, but at least I gave myself a good chuckle while doing it.
So back to The Thing: did you ever read the Dark Horse comics series? They were...pretty not great, unfortunately. Not "Thing 2 screenplay" levels of bad but they had so much untapped potential. If you're interested in checking them out, just hit up readcomiconline.to and search for The Thing from Another World.
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glad to know, i think I'm gonna check it out
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Good recommendation, thank you. I ended up watching the 2011 version followed by the original and it was a hell of a good cinema experience.
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thx
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welcome and good luck!
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Thanks!
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welcome and good luck!
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🐺 May the werewolves protect you. 🐺
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This is my favorite phrase on all of steamgifts. It just makes me smile.
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You're welcome. Also, the werewolves are happy to make you smile.
They're a loyal, sensitive and joyful bunch once you get to know them.
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Thanks for the game, J! I'm also a fan of the 1982 movie, I just re-watched it a few weeks ago in fact.
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You are welcome, my dude. Sorry it took awhile, sgtools showed you had an unredeemed game (trashville or something) and I wasn't sure what to do, so I finally decided fuck it, who cares? and sent the key. I hope you enjoy it, buddy :)
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No worries, I wasn't in any rush.
That is strange about Trashville, I can see the game on my steam app, but I tried looking at my steam profile and it's not there. Just now I installed the game and played it for a few minutes to see what would happen, but it still doesn't show up on my profile. I wonder if it's got something to do with the fact that it's been removed from steam? Anyway, I guess that's why it's a "well-known false positive" on sgtools!
Thanks again :).
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