I have a great deal of trepidation about the upcoming prequel The Thing, because of my sincere love of John Carpenter's 1982 remake. Most of the clips and trailers have all looked legitimately faithful and hopefully will compliment its predecessor, but I'm still dubious. At least it's not a remake.
What I've never been worried about is the "replacing" of a male lead character with a female - in this case, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as paleontologist Kate Lloyd. For some, adding a woman into the mix, when the Norwegian section of Carpenter's movie had little mention of one, seems to bother some, but I say bring it on. Some of the best sci-fi movies ever made feature female lead characters, and Winstead agrees. In a recent interview with Spinoff, Winstead said her love of Ridley Scott's Alien is what convinced her to take the part in the first place.
I love Ripley and I love the Alien movies. The comparison was coming up in pre-production. I love the comparison! It was fun to be able to play a character as a woman in a movie who’s that smart and that strong and that put together and not neurotic or shrill or sexy or whatever the things women usually are in movies. The character, to be honest, was so refreshing it was just kind of a no-brainer — I had to do it.
Winstead says that The Thing is very much in the vein of the sci-fi movies that inspired it (like, oh, say, The Thing).
For me it evokes a time period of my favorite horror films, the ‘70s and ‘80s, and I feel it has a little bit more of that kind of classic slow burn. The first half of the film is slow and suspenseful and then when the terror kicks in, it kicks in and it doesn’t let go.
That seems an apt description of the extended TV spot below.
The Thing opens this Friday.
