This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr gets ready to celebrate Halloween in style with some horror releases… and he’s not just thinking of Footloose. Unhappy with his life, he follows the bucket list path of Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black, traveling to the bottom of the world where he finds himself in a small Antarctic town that has outlawed dancing. So Kevin takes it upon himself to help the people get their groove on only to discover they’ve been taken over an alien species that duplicate human form. Later, he takes a trip back to the heartland where he finds a feral woman chained in a cellar… pretty standard for some of the towns he’s been to. Finally, not being able to find a theater that is still playing Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence), he checks it out On Demand and promptly throws up.

The Thing is a prequel, not a remake. The trailers indicated Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.‘s film was going to be nothing but a series of retreads, but it’s far from it. The commercial director managed to make a film he can actually call his own. Slightly old school and slightly modern, The Thing is a surprisingly fun horror film. Although, to start with some bad news, it does take time to warm up to this prequel. One of its main problems is reminiscent of Predators – you’re watching characters wandering around spouting “What’s going on?”, when you already know exactly what’s going on. The build-up to the goods doesn’t take a great deal of time, but most of the set-up elicits that unexciting feeling of being 20 minutes ahead of your characters, especially for those who’ve seen Carpenter’s remake. Once the chaos commences in the second act, that’s when the film begins to firmly take hold. There’s an all-hell-breaks-loose moment, where more than a couple of characters are killed off, and it’s the scene where the film begins to work. This bloody and standout scene comes after the expected “let’s see which one of us is still human!” experiment, another bit the filmmakers managed to put their own unique spin on. After that “oh, crap” moment, it’s all running and screaming from thereon out.

Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. had a lot going against him when he took on The Thing. Fanboy outrage notwithstanding, the filmmaker had to take the same concept — characters discovering an alien running amuck, guessing who’s not human, that sense of paranoia — and still make his own film, and not simply a series of retreads. The obvious reliance on CGI over practical effects isn’t the greatest difference from John Carpenter‘s film; it’s all the spins and deviations Heijningen crafted — the unique alien designs that differ vastly from the original’s transformations, the lack of any bad-ass heroes, the twist on the blood test scene, and plenty more — which make this prequel stand apart. Here’s what director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. had to say about revamping concepts, why you’ll be seeing more CG versions of the alien over practical versions, and why we shouldn’t expect an unrated cut:

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s not messing about. Just doin’ the news. We begin tonight with one of many new images from The Adventures of Tintin. For one of those motion capture, lost in the shadow of the uncanny valley movies, this looks pretty slick. Finally we get to see Andy Serkis act in a movie. Or not.

It’s unclear why this is a red-band trailer. Maybe because it’s adequately startling? Or a bit gruesome without splattering blood everywhere? Or maybe because no one curses or gets naked? Either way, even though The Thing is a remake prequel with the same name as its originator featuring roughly the same plot, the strength of this piece of marketing is the fabulous creature design done as a group effort by Amalgamated Dynamics, The Aaron Sims Company and several others. From the design to the execution, it looks appropriately slimy and scary. Check it out for yourself, and watch out for that co-worker with the eye twitch.

John Carpenter’s The Thing may be among the greatest remakes of all time. It shares little with its predecessor, and actually calling it a remake may be unnecessary, as they’re both born from the novella Who Goes There? Anyway, let’s call it a remake – let’s not mince words, because if I did that now, the rest of my argument wouldn’t make much sense, because I’m calling out 2011′s The Thing for not copping to what it is. The thing is, it’s exactly what it seems like, unlike the alien in the movie, but the filmmakers just won’t admit their film is a remake. I mean, they sort of aren’t against calling it a re-something. Kind of. See, to them it’s a prequel. It tells the stories of the Norwegians, so it’s part of the canon. It can’t be a remake if it actually takes place in the storyline. It just becomes an installment of the franchise. Normally, that’s fine. Who cares? A prequel isn’t as good as a sequel, generally, but we regard it as a step up from a remake. But here’s the problem: watch the trailer for The Thing. This movie is a God damned remake and there ain’t no two ways about it.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; fatter than Jesus. This is the weekly column that celebrates the myriad ways a film can fail. Every Friday I take you for a ride on the SchlockCoaster; careening through each of the movie’s wild faults. I then level things off and explain how I still love the film despite those faults. Then, after your confidence in my tastes plummets at thrilling speed, we exit the ride and I treat you to a gooey, sticky snack food that is sure to unsettle your stomach. With today’s inexplicable release of yet another Final Destination movie, I believe it’s called FIVEnal Destination Goes West, I thought it would be fun to look back at the only entry in the franchise that I find enjoyable. This week’s snack: Final Destination 3

File this under “irrelevant for another couple of years” but news has arrived on the next installment of the Die Hard franchise. If you’re surprised that there’s going to be another one then you clearly haven’t been paying attention. The fourth film, Live Free or Die Hard, is commonly thought to the worst of the series, but that distinction is actually held by Renny Harlin’s Die Hard 2: Die Harder. More important than quality though is the fact that the last installment was the highest grossing of the four. And since it was also the first to be rated PG-13 expect that to be the standard going forward. Twitch is reporting two bits of news on the film. First up, while the director’s chair is far from locked down they’ve learned that an offer has gone out to John Moore and the job is his if he wants it. He’d be a fool to pass it up… his last movie was the visually impressive but otherwise stupid Max Payne, and his best work remains his feature debut, Behind Enemy Lines. Go ahead and laugh, but it’s a fun flick that looks solid and gets a worthwhile performance out of Owen Wilson. And second, a minor plot detail has arrived in the form of location and characters. It appears the plan is for McClane and his son to encounter trouble in Russia that inevitably results in gunfire, explosions, and a fight scene while balancing on the whirring blades of a helicopter.

A few days ago we got a great poster for The Thing prequel. At the time I guessed we would be getting actual footage come Cowboys and Aliens time, but thankfully, I was wrong. Today a full-length trailer got released, and it’s as cool as Antarctica! Get it? Because it’s really cold there and all? Bad jokes aside, this trailer effectively plays up the mystery and paranoia aspect. I still can’t tell whether they’re going for something more fast-paced or if they’re sticking to being a slow-burn, but either way, it looks like a solid, R-rated atmospheric horror film. I just hope they somehow managed to not make an unneeded retread full of the same situations we saw in Carpenter’s original.

Things have been very quiet on the waterfront for Universal’s prequel to The Thing, suitably titled The Thing. After a scrapped April release date, we’ve seen nothing from the film. No trailer. Only a few images. And no poster… until now. The coolest part of this very well done (and unofficially released) poster is that it shows the movie is indeed coming out this October. With no trailer three months before opening, it seemed as if another delay was coming. Thankfully, that’s not the case.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

Beautiful women with weapons is becoming the next hot trend in Hollywood to the objection of absolutely no one. Helen Mirren wields a massive machine gun in Red, and now we can see Mary Elizabeth Winstead blasting a flame thrower in the recently released pictures from The Thing. Plus, there are plenty of male stars wielding flamethrowers, science being done, more flamethrowers, a ton of snow, and the added bonus of flamethrowers. Check out the gallery after the jump.

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr takes a gander at the demographically delineated movie selection this weekend. The ladies have Julia Roberts finding herself in Eat Pray Love. The dudes have Sly and the action family Stallone with the much anticipated The Expendables. And the fanboys fresh from Comic-Con have the high-concept slug-fest Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Sorry to all the teenage girls out there. You’ll just have to go see Eclipse at the dollar theater this weekend.

As I mentioned to my beloved followers on Twitter late last week, I exited my own screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World convinced that director Edgar Wright’s style was perfectly matched with my own tastes. Wright’s films — everything from his work on Spaced to Shaun of the Dead to my very favorite buddy cop comedy Hot Fuzz — have all the right pieces to play perfectly to my own moviegoing disposition. His films have undeniable energy. This is oft referred to by people who don’t know any better as his ability to “play to the ADD generation,” but is more in line with Hitchcock’s knack for suspense. It’s just always there. Wright’s films are brisk and consistent because he doesn’t allow much room for downtime. The jokes are meticulously strung together to create not beats, but a constant stream of style and tone. I adore this in his films. I also love the way he casts the things. So to say that Scott Pilgrim — based on a series of books filled with wry observations about culture as I’ve experienced it in my 26 years on the planet — is built for someone like me is an understatement. To me, it’s the perfect marriage of filmmaking style (Wright) and razor-sharp writing without the loss of character depth (comic creator Bryan Lee O’Malley). This may be the case for many of you. But what does it offer to the rest — the millions of folks not familiar with the

The world that Scott Pilgrim faces off against is not our own. It’s a world where a man can be thrown against a building without being all that hurt, a world where a girl can pull a giant sledge hammer out of her purse before fighting the remnants of her experimental phase in college, a world where the comic book-style letters R-I-N-G float from the telephone when a call comes in. Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a slacker who plays bass in a band, sleeps in the same bed as his roommate and dates a high schooler named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Then, the girl of his dreams (literally) Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) roller skates into his life and inexplicably falls for him. Unfortunately, dating her means facing off against her seven evil exes in seven evil battles to the death.

Now that Inception is upon us, nothing can stop the world of fandom from turning toward the summer’s final treat, Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Based on the wildly popular Scott Pilgrim comic series by Brian O’Malley, this one looks to be the energetic kick that we’ll need just before the fall movie season starts up. Universal today released a new featurette for the film focused on explaining just what makes up the world of Scott Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) and why he must endure so much torture in order to win the heart of the girl he loves, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). After the jump you will find the film’s official synopsis, the new featurette and assured bliss.

Another day, another reason to talk about Edgar Wright’s spitfire comic adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. For the most part, we avoid posting every little TV spot released for a given movie. But this one’s fun, so it gets a pass.

After several days and a social media campaign to get 100,000 fans to follow the film on Facebook, Universal has released the latest trailer for Edgar Wright’s upcoming film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

As promised, Universal Pictures has released the first trailer for Edgar Wright’s upcoming comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which is based on an awesome series of books by Brian Lee O’Malley. And as we see here in the trailer, this isn’t what some might expect out of a comic book movie — but it is certainly what fans of Scott Pilgrim might expect out of a Scott Pilgrim movie.

The not-a-remake-just-really-similar-to-the-plot-of-the-first-film Thing prequel has added a hot chick and some dude to the cast. Read it.