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The Thing (2011) is a prequel to John Carpenter's cult classic film, also titled The Thing (1982). Is it any good? Read on to find out...


The Thing (2011) is the prelude to John Carpenter's cult classic film, in which paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) travels to an isolated outpost in Antarctica to join an international team who unearths a remarkable discovery. Their elation quickly turns to fear as they realize that their experiment has freed a mysterious being from its frozen prison. Paranoia spreads like an epidemic as a creature that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish in this spine-tingling thriller.


Like John Carpenter's original, itself a remake of The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (2011) takes place in Antarctica in 1982. It shows what happened at the Norwegian base camp that MacReady (Kurt Russell) and his crew found in the Carpenter film, and ends just minutes before that film starts. As such, it shouldn't have been titled the same as the film it's meant to be a prequel of. They could have called it Before The Thing, The Thing Begins, or even Fear The Thing. To simply call it The Thing is just madness.


I know that a lot of people don't like this film, but I enjoyed it. Was it as good as the Carpenter film? Of course not. But it has the same feel and spirit and never failed to keep me enthralled. There are a lot of cool, creepy creature mutations, though occasionally the CGI looks a bit fake. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I've always liked Mary Elizabeth Winstead, doing her best Ripley imitation here.


The Thing (2011) is presented in the 2.40:1 aspect ratio with a runtime of 1:42:56. On the audio side, there is only an English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Subtitles are available in English only.

Here is a list of all of the bonus features that can be found on the disc.

• Audio Commentary with director Matthijs van Heijningen and producer Eric Newman.
• The Thing Evolves (13:59) - The cast and crew talk about the film and pay respect to John Carpenter's version.
• Fire & Ice (4:46) - A look at the flamethrowers and visual effects used in the film.
• Deleted/Extended Scenes - Includes seven scenes, which are not titled on this Blu-ray, but were titled as such on Universal's original Blu-ray from 2012: "2 Phone Calls" (0:23), "It's True" (1:01), "Come In, Over!" (0:31), "That's Not Karl" (1:29), "Colin" (1:17), "Two Heads" (1:19), and "Start the Helicopter Now" (2:53)
• Trailer (2:33)

Compared to Universal's original Blu-ray from 2012, this new Mill Creek release omits a Picture-in-Picture track with producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, and leaves out the titles for the deleted/extended scenes (the scenes themselves are still there), but adds a trailer and retains all of the other bonus features.

Here's the thing that always confuses me when Mill Creek releases a movie or TV program in a format that it was already released on years earlier by its original owners: Why would Mill Creek author their own disc instead of just paying for the distribution rights to the old one? Unless there were issues with the original release that Mill Creek can correct, wouldn't the distribution rights be cheaper than authoring a new disc(s)? At least Mill Creek's price is cheaper, and in this case, almost all of the bonus features have been retained (and a new one added).


The Thing (2011) is available on Blu-ray from Mill Creek. If you want the additional picture-in-picture bonus feature, you should also pick up Universal's original Blu-ray release. You can also pick it up on DVD with the same bonus features as this Mill Creek Blu-ray, minus the trailer. Oh, and don't forget to also pick up John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), too.


All images were taken from the IMDB gallery of the film. This item has been provided by Mill Creek Entertainment for review on this site.