The casting call for Matthijs Van Heijningen's prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing reveals plenty about the main characters and spills major plot points. And the information is a lot less pleasing than an upside-down-head spider.
We recently reported that the prequel to John Carpenter's alien shapeshifter classic The Thing will begin filming in March, and today's casting call on Spoiler TV gives an exact date (March 15, 2010) and a slew of information about the leads.
According to the casting call, audiences will be rooting for plucky protagonist "Kate Lloyd" (a "pretty, bright-eyed, intelligent [...] graduate of Columbia and a Ph.D. candidate in paleontology") and hissing at her wayward mentor, "Dr. Sander Halvorson" ("Blinded by ambition, he refuses to abandon the 'project' even as the bodies pile up around him"). Throw in Kurt Russell archetype "Sam Carter" ("he flies for one reason: money") and you have the makings of, uh, maybe a halfway decent airplane movie?
To be honest, we aren't heartened by this information. With filming beginning a mere two months from now and no marquee names attached to this project, we're afraid The Thing -1 will be an underpromoted, cheap CGI gorefest. Also, the fact that the casting call confirms a cliché, disposable black sidekick doesn't mollify us one bit ("He's moving to Florida and starting a jetboat business with his brother, a former big league prospect [...but] eventually falls prey to the THING").
Like ancient alien body snatchers frozen under the Antarctic ice, sometimes it's best not to dredge up classic scifi flicks. Let's reminisce with the best scene from the original Thing. Remember, this was 1982 - all of these shapeshifting nasties were disgusting, disgusting puppets.