There have been bad ideas before and there will be bad ideas again, but the idea of making a prequel to a movie considered a classic like John Carpenter’s The Thing and using CGI when that movie was infamous for its volume of practical gore…well, look it’s just not a good idea.

Directed by commercial vet Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and written by Eric Heisserer (Arrival, Bird Box) this movie, if anything, tell us more about the two men chasing the dog and trying to shoot it in the 1982 film.

Dawn of the Dead producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman had such success with that film that they looked for other Universal movies to remake, convincing the studio to make a prequel instead of a sequel to The Thing. Newman said, “I’d be the first to say no one should ever try to do Jaws again and I certainly wouldn’t want to see anyone remake The Exorcist… And we really felt the same way about The Thing. It’s a great film. But once we realized there was a new story to tell, with the same characters and the same world, but from a very different point of view, we took it as a challenge. It’s the story about the guys who are just ghosts in Carpenter’s movie – they’re already dead. But having Universal give us a chance to tell their story was irresistible.”

Heijningen had been scheduled to direct the sequel to the remake of Dawn which eventually became Army of the Dead. When that got canceled, he was available for this, noting that his favorite movies were The Thing and Alien, which is why Mary Elizabeth Winstead is playing Ripley in this.

This movie really had a major issue to deal with: fans of the original probably were going to hate it and new viewers that had no idea of that film would be lost. It failed, as you’d expect.

I’ve really tried to watch this movie with an open mind. That’s impossible, to be honest. I belong to the group that loves the original, sees this as sacrilege and doesn’t want to even admit that this exists.

The Mill Creek Through the Decades: 2010s Collection has ten movies for a great price, including The American, MacGruber, The Dilemma, The Adjustment Bureau, Your Highness, Contraband, Safe House, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and Black Sea. You can order it from Deep Discount.