The Thing: A Lesson In Remake Failure

3. Trust€™s A Tough Thing To Come By These Days

Carpenter€™s version is a paranoid horror about trust. At the dawn of the 80s, America was still feeling the chill of the Cold War, Reagan was almost assassinated, and AIDS emerged. Suspicion was everywhere - none of these threats carried a visible marker - and The Thing reflected these concerns right down to MacReady telling Blair €œtrust€™s a tough thing to come by these days€. Even Macready himself wasn€™t exempt of suspicion. Enough doubt is raised to make us wonder if he himself is a Thing. His clothes are found shredded, he leads his partner astray from the safety of the group, and manages to survive impossibly cold temperatures. As a result, the viewer is as in the dark as the characters on screen yet in the prequel there is never any doubt that Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is human and we know who€™s alien because they€˜re forever exposing themselves - which nullifies the theme of €œwho can you trust?€ Instead it has nothing to say and is *just* a monster movie. And it doesn€™t even make sense which leads me on to:
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Chiselled, charismatic, intellectual.....these are just a few words in my vocabulary. Loves watching films and believes the best thing about Christmas is watching old people slip on ice.