Tuesday, January 28, 2020

The Thing Goes There, Again

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In 2018 the sci-fi scholar Alec Nevala-Lee discovered a never-before-seen longer version of John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There" while researching his book on the so-called "Golden Age" of science-fiction publishing, aka the previous early mid-century-ish. The new version was forty-five pages longer than what ultimately got published in 1938 in Astounding magazine, which was edited by none other than Campbell himself. The story "Who Goes There?" is of course notable for being the inspiration for Howard Hawks' 1951 classic film The Thing From Another World and then eventually John Carpenter's terrifying remake in 1982.

I hadn't heard about any of this, not even when the longer version of the story got Kickstartered and published under the title Frozen Hell last October. I missed it all! That is I missed it until today when I read that Blumhouse is planning on making yet another movie version of the story -- no word if they'll stick with the title The Thing or if they'll got with Frozen Hell but if I had to place any bets I'd wager they'll go with the known property title. Hey remember the 2011 prequel with Joel Edgerton and Mary Elizabeth Winstead?

I think I'm one of the few horror nerds who thought that version was not good -- I recall it getting a lot of love at that moment, and then vanishing entirely into the ether five minutes later. Anyway I wasn't very happy with it, here's my review. I think it's best it vanished from memory. We don't have any names attached to this new version yet, and until I read Frozen Hell I don't know what new things have been added to the story, so this is all a question mark. But in the wake of the generally successful Color Out of Space I'm not surprised we're getting this -- maybe the Lovecraftian kick can continue until we finally get Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness... 
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All the reviews I remember is that it was an unnecessary rehash of the Carpenter film with terrible CGI in place of Rob Bottin's masterful practical effects.