Skip to main content

The Things

The other night I treated myself to a Blu-Ray double bill of "John Carpenter's The Thing" (1982) and "The Thing" (2011), though, of course, the correct order to see them in, given that the latter is the prequel, is the other way round.

A lot has been said against the 2011 film, that it is a pale imitation of John Carpenter's classic horror, but I think it is a great piece of work, and it stands well against the older film, and it is a real joy to see them back to back, to learn what happened to the fated Norwegians before that helicopter came buzzing over the Antarctic ice shelf chasing that dog. And the two films, despite being made nearly 30 years apart, gel beautifully together.




What is especially fun is seeing how well Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr has recreated the living scenes from the ghosts or aftermaths of the scenes in the 1982 film, in his 2011 prequel. It's great to see the continuity of the helicopter, the dog, but also the ice-block and the room it is stored in, the axe in the wall, and the dead man in the chair. The attention to detail is exemplary, and it shows a real reverence for the older film, which, as Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr rightly said, could not be improved upon, so why even attempt to remake it.

If you're a fan of John Carpenter's classic film, I highly recommend a late night double bill.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turning Fifty

I woke up early this morning on my 50th birthday. It was as bright outside as it would ever be at 5am due to it being the summer solstice, the longest period of daylight time. From here on, the nights get longer. Sitting in bed with a cup of tea I started to think about some of the first stories I wrote, and a few memories came back to me. The first thing I remember writing was in my penultimate year in primary school, so we're talking 1983-4. Successfully combining two major phobias of mine, it was called "Tarantursnake" and took up a whopping four pages of my English workbook. I remember getting a decent mark for it, but the only thing I could remember from the story itself was a man hanging on for dear life to a pole suspended over a pit of tarantursnakes. In fact, that may have been the whole thing. I'm not so sure it followed any conventional rules of narrative. Later, in 1987, in high school, a collection of us smuggled copies of the newly published paperback of
Post a Comment
Read more

The Path Behind the House - a two minute ghost story

So eager was I to get home to my wife and child, that I drove a little carelessly. It was Friday evening, and I was at the end of another long working week in the city. A weekend at home was exactly what I needed. When I was only a few roads away I rang Juliette. I was sitting in traffic waiting to join a roundabout and she told me she had lit the fire to make the house cosy for my return. She was bathing little Elliott and had allowed him to stay up late to see me. I was concerned when she hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Perhaps she had needed to urgently attend to our boy's regular antics of tipping water out of the bath.      I pulled up the gravel driveway and swung the car in front of the house, noticing that the front door was ajar and all the lights in the house were on. I got out and stepped across the threshold, calling out to Juliette. She didn't answer. From the kitchen a beautiful smell of cooking. The carpeted stairs were peppered with dark drips. The lig
1 comment
Read more

My books are now in Prestatyn and Rhyl Libraries in North Wales

  Four of my books are now available in Prestatyn and Rhyl Libraries. Being an indie author I wasn't sure that they would accept book donations as they might have had a computer system on which they may have needed to be discoverable. Either that wasn't a thing and my concerns were unfounded, or they were actually discoverable on said computer system. Anyway, they have taken copies for both libraries. If you happen to be in the area, the books they have available are: The Tolworth Beacon The Axiom Few The Sapling Method (set in Prestatyn!) The Train Set So basically, and this was definiitely not intentional, they have all my "The Something Something" books. Does this mean my titles are becoming as cliche'd as "A Something of Something" or even "The Girl Something Something"? Maybe I need to find a new title format... Except I am writing a sequel to The Tolworth Beacon which is going to be titled "The Tolworth Something". (I do know wh
Post a Comment
Read more