I'll watch with interest but i fear the worst. The kurt russell version worked not only because of the special effects (which for the time were brilliant) but because of the palpable tension of a bunch of guys, scared witless, totally isolated and paranoid. The scene where Macready and Blair go to the Norwegian base and see the destruction is one of my favourite scenes of any horror movie ever. At this stage you don't know what they're facing and you think "what could be so awful that they'd do this to themselves?" It adds such a sense of foreboding.

I get the impression that The Thing 2011 is going to be more of a 'monster chasing people punctuated with gory death scenes' movie than a genuine suspenseful, eerie one. The fact that they show at least 4 of the infected people in the bloody trailer makes me think the film will show the same ham-fisted earmarks.

Sparky, deep down we all know it will be shite. The trailer looks like a remake - a shiny, glossy remake. If it were a true prequel, there would only be a bunch of grizzly Swedes - sorry, Norwegians - being killed, slitting their wrists, and blowing themselves up with grenades. But for some reason there is a beautiful girl and a MacReady surrogate.

By their very nature, prequels are pointless stories because we already know the outcome. We know who lives, who dies, and what happens next. Most of the time it either contradicts existing facts (hello Star Wars) or demystifies the characters (hello again, Star Wars!). "Oh, so they ate the Thing's last Mars bar - and his stepdad used to abuse him? No wonder he was pissed in the sequel!".

The Godfather: Part II works because it has a parallel narrative; half of the story we don't yet know. But most are just plain tripe.

I agree on the foreboding atmosphere of The Thing. The little bass line of Morricone's score playing like a pulse. And what about the blood testing scene? Another great aspect is the everyman cast. We could have been one of the team; just normal guys doing their best to get through a shit job. They aren't highly trained specialists, they're are regular Joes using common sense - well, to be fair, Mac was in 'Nam I think as a pilot, but he's not an indestructible superman. If a character in the prequel does Kung Fu on the monster I'll walk up to the screen and smear faeces over it.