So I went to see another remake/prequel/sequel of a horror classic, the prequel to John Carpenter's masterpiece The Thing. The original The Thing is one of my all time favorite horror films, its a near perfect blend of psychological horror and gory horror, so I was very interested in seeing how badly Hollywood would butcher the film. On that department I wasn't disappointed the makers of the prequel pretty much missed completely what made the original so good.
The premise of the film is that an isolated research station in the Antarctica that gets attacked by an alien being that can perfectly imitate any living organism. In the original much of the psychological horror came from not knowing which of the characters are aliens and which are human. Another point of interest comes from the different ways the characters interact with each other in the situation where no one can really be trusted. It wasn't just about a bunch humans killing a lurking alien before it kills the humans, like in the Alien, but it was also about the internal conflicts in the group, the group had to deal with an external threat of the alien as well as the internal threat of the group disintegrating due to the lack of trust. The original also had some pretty good effects that made the alien look terrifyingly otherworldly.
Sadly the makers of the prequel completely forgot the psychological part of the plot and we are treated to a cavalcade of CGI Gore and jump scares. If you really, really, really love jump scares then this is a movie for you, there are about 10 scenes of characters walking in dark room and something jumping at them. Another favorite scene of the director is "the-character-is-looking-at-something-and-the-monster-appears-behind-her/him"-scene. Its really boring to watch basically the same scenes redone 20 times with different characters in different locations and its not scary when you can guess that in 5 seconds something will burst through the wall.
Another big problem this movie has is the characters, there are waaayyyy too many of them, I can't even remember most of them, they were your basic horror movie cannon fodder, that die for the sake of getting some gore into the film. When will Hollywood learn that feeling disgusted by gore isn't the same as being scared? I simple death can be scary if the scene is done well and its a character that we the audience we care about. Seeing some dude who said three lines in the film getting torn apart by some alien monstrosity isn't scary as much as it is sickening.
But back to the characters. In the original you had an array of characters, who were all individuals in their own way. You had MacReady the helicopter pilot, a take action sort of guy who medicates the hum-drum boredom of the research station with alcohol, Childs who has authority issues and constantly challenges anyone trying to take charge, Garry who is the base commander and a law & order type, Windows, the high strung radio operator, Clark the quiet giant with a heart who is the dog handler of the base and so forth. Although not all characters are not fully fleshed out and discussed in-depth in the movie, you still get the sense that they are all individuals with strengths and weaknesses and different reactions to the situation at hand.
The remake messed up the characters pretty badly, there were the bearded Norwegians and then the American pilots, then there was the science dude, who was more concerned about his Nobel price than about human lives, the main character was Kate of whom I can't really say anything since her actions were more driven by plot convenience than by any characteristic in her character. The only character I liked was Lars, a Norwegian who didn't speak English, he was bad ass and hearing him curse in Norwegian was awesome. At one point it looked like he might become MacReady of this film and he had a sort of an understanding with Kate on how to handle the situation, but by halfway he gets taken out of the film.
Overall the film was unmemorable and watching it mainly made me wish that I was watching Carpenters version. You are failing as film makers if I feel bored watching a horror film, which was what I was feeling half way into this mess, because I could pretty much guess what was going to happen, the element of surprise was missing, what made the original fun to watch was how unpredictable the characters were, one dude starts destroying the radio and shooting at people, one tries to start doing the same, there is an argument over who should be in charge, accusations start flying around etc. The new film was a predictable as they get. I wasn't a really bad film, the makers just missed the key elements that made the original good, and that made it a mediocre sci-fi horror film. If you haven't seen The Thing, watch the original its a much superior film.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti