I'm sure you've all heard by now that the Sci-Fi channel is set to underwhelm everyone over 30 by remaking two classic, fin-de siecle horror films. First, they've somehow snookered Ridley Scott into taking on a made-for-tv version of the Andromeda Stain. Second, they want to give the made-for-tv treatment to John Carpenter's The Thing.
Two bad ideas that taste bad together!
Reason #1 this idea sucks - The single most horrifying thing in the original Andromeda Stain is the very real, snuff-quality footage of a Capuchin monkey being gassed to death. Even when I see it now I don't wholly expect this sickening moment. It hits like a sledgehammer. And no amount of digital graphics in this world is going to ever carry the weight of that scene.
Reason #2 this idea sucks - In The Thing, Kurt Russell is The Man. He will always be The Man. And noooobody beats him. NO-body!!!!
Reason #3 this idea sucks - Goes back to reason #1. The monsters in The Thing are carefully constructed works of art. There is no CGI in this movie. The guy who did the models, Rob Bottin, is a genius. They are everything TBF lives for: fantastic, gruesome and shameless. He plumbed the depths of human dread to come up with these gross-out on top of gross-out monsters. The Thing is one of John Carpenter's best films ever. There is simply nowhere to go but down, with a remake.
BUT - - Reason #1 this idea might not suck - Andromeda Stain has a wimpy ending. It builds tremendous tension and then fizzles. If anybody can put the hammer back into the last 20 minutes of this film, it should be Ridley Scott. I'd like to see him pull it off. It's a great story with a craptastic ending. I just hope he's been hired to beat the crap out of the end of the original script.
P. S. - It's still a bad idea to remake The Thing. Never fuck with perfection.
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