An Excellent Remake Of The 1951 Classic

Rating: 8/10 (16 August 2009)

Given that this movie received largely negative reviews when it was released in 1982, I confess that I decided to watch it mostly out of curiosity to see how bad it really was. After viewing it, what I don't understand are the views of the critics. I thought this really was a superb remake of the 1951 movie of the same name, different enough to be a totally unique movie-watching experience, but maintaining the same basic plot. My attention was captured from the very beginning, with the scenes of the helicopter chasing the husky across the antarctic landscape, with a gunman on board desperately trying to kill the animal. What's going on? Once we discover that the dog is in fact the alien being (an alien who consumes its victims and then takes on their identical form) the story progresses and becomes completely bewildering (appropriately so, because a big part of the suspense is that neither the viewers nor the characters in the movie know who has been infected by these aliens and who hasn't) and at the same time extremely suspenseful, and sometimes downright frightening.
Kurt Russell did a great job in the lead role, and was surrounded by a very capable group of actors who put on a fantastic show. Perhaps worthy of note is that this may be the only movie I've ever seen with an all-male (and I mean totally) cast. There's not a woman to be found in this one. The setting (in an isolated Antarctic scientific outpost) is bleak and claustrophobic, in spite of the fact that there's a lot of open space, and so very effective in creating the perfect mood. The movie is rather gory at times, and the idea for the alien creatures is perhaps borrowed a little too obviously from the movie "Alien." The end is completely anti-climactic and leaves a great deal up in the air, which suggests perhaps that there was hope for a sequel which never came to pass because of the poor reception this movie got. That poor reception was mistaken, though. This is an excellent movie. 8/10