Five Horror Classics That Should Never Be Remade, Rebooted, Recalibrated, Whatever

The Thing (1982)

Words cannot begin to describe how upset I was when I read about what everyone THOUGHT was going to be a remake of John Carpenter’s classic.

So imagine how excited I was to discover that the 2011 film, “The Thing,” was going to be a prequel, instead!  Was it necessary?  Hell no – but it was nice to hear film makers express no desire to remake a horror classic, explaining that you “don’t paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa.”

There’s not much about the original that can be improved – this was one of Kurt Russell’s most bad-ass roles, it featured music by Ennio Morricone, and it was directed by John Carpenter, hello! – but you know there’s some knucklehead out there complaining about the special effects.   Those effects were ground-breaking at the time, but yeah, a new film would have better ones.

Lesser acting, directing, but better effects?  No thanks.

“The Thing” is a claustrophobic masterpiece with a perfectly nihilistic ending.  Leave that thing alone!

Next: Alien