Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2012

Remember how John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing opened with guys in a helicopter in Antarctica trying to shoot a fleeing dog? This movie details the events leading up to that point. Thing is, those events are almost scene-for-scene the same as the earlier (later?) flick. So it’s a prequel that plays like a remake, but a cut above most such efforts, and that’s, um, a good thing. It’s kind of cool how the title aliens replicate their human hosts and appear quite normal before cinematically bursting out as big, ravenous, gooey monsters with tentacles, beaks and claws. I used to know a girl like that.