31 Days 31 Scores
October 4th
“You think they’re gonna pay a bonus for bringing home an alien instead of core samples?”
Welcome back to 31 Days 31 Scores. When it was announced that there was going to be a prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, I knew that they were never going to be able to capture the feeling of the original no matter how hard they tried. It would be nearly impossible. The 2011 version of The Thing proves that you can’t go back again and maybe you shouldn’t. Ennio Morricone and John Carpenter’s score from the 1982 film, while minimal, was effective. Brought in to write the score for the 2011 version was Marco Beltrami. Beltrami never one to back away from the challenge of a horror remake and has done such films The Omen and Carrie.
Beltrami’s approach is not as minimal as Morricone’s approach but the drumming beat from the 1982 score does make its appearance early on. (God’s Country Music) It also makes another appearance in “Open Your Mouth”. Beltrami has always been good at suspense and creating tension and he does it quite well here. The 2011 film plays the action up a bit more too and Beltrami also uses that to his advantage creating a score that has a great horror vibe and at the same time can rise to an action cue. (Meating Of The Minds). While the film is not the follow up we were looking for Beltrami’s score definitely earns its place in this unfortunately mediocre outing. The 2011 The Thing was released on the Varese Sarabande label.
Join me tomorrow for more 31 Days 31 Scores where “Days never end. Nightmares are real. No one is innocent.”