10 Horror Movies Ruined By ONE Thing
9. Erasing The Practical Effects - The Thing (2011)
Making a prequel to John Carpenter's inimitable The Thing was always going to be a thankless task, but to the credit of filmmaker Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., he did a rock-solid job replicating the unnerving, paranoid atmosphere of Carpenter's original, aided by a stellar ensemble cast.
However, The Thing 2011 made one major misstep that basically confined it to the pop-culture dustbin - settling on VFX for the film's grotesque transformation and mutation sequences.
This is especially egregious as the movie was originally shot with practical animatronic effects in line with Carpenter's original, but after test audiences complained about said effects, Universal panicked and had them painted over with CGI instead.
The result is an abject mess, with the CGI transformations looking incredibly video game-y and lacking the disturbingly uncanny quality of the practical effects from the 1982 classic. And more to the point, this did the film's box office no favours at all, as it was still a catastrophic flop.
Fans have since passionately campaigned for Universal to release a cut which restores the original effects, though given that this prequel has been all but forgotten, it seems incredibly unlikely to ever happen.