THE THING (15, 102 mins) ***
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jorgen Langhelle, Kim Bubbs, Trond Espen Seim. Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

In 1982, John Carpenter directed the science-fiction horror The Thing, in which humans battled a parasitic life form with the ability to clone its prey.

Released at the same time as Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, which provided a cheerier close encounter with aliens, Carpenter’s film failed to set alight the box office, but subsequently gained a cult following on video.

Dutch film-maker Matthijs van Heijningen Jr hopes for greater success with this prequel to the 1982 picture, which is also – bemusingly – a remake of its more accomplished and scarier predecessor.

Opening with the old Universal Pictures logo as a nod to the Carpenter version, The Thing unfolds predominantly in Antarctica, where an alien beastie runs amok, slaughtering most of the cast.

While this version has a higher body count and lashings of gore, the prequel lacks suffocating tension, visual invention and skin-crawling scares that distinguished the earlier picture.

Medical officer Dr Sander Halvorson (Thomsen) and research assistant Adam Finch (Olsen) invite palaeontologist Dr Kate Lloyd (Winstead) to join them at a dig close to the South Pole.

Kate joins the expedition under station commander Edvard Wolner (Seim), who eventually reveals a crash-landed alien craft and the corpse of a creature entombed in the ice, from which Halvorson resolves to harvest a sample of DNA. Sure enough, the creature goes on the rampage.

“This thing can and probably has replicated a person,” warns Kate, looking nervously at helicopter pilot Sam Carter (Edgerton), co-pilot Derek Jameson (Akinnuoye-Agbaje), French geologist Juliette (Bubbs) or Norwegian dog keeper Lars (Langhelle).

Paranoia turns the team members against one another and Kate dons a flamethrower to fight the otherworldly terror with fire.

The Thing is a competent amalgamation of past and present, fusing 21st century make-up and digital effects with a storyline that dovetails neatly with Carpenter’s blood-soaked expedition.

The set-pieces are confidently orchestrated, but there’s no palpable suspense and we can guess the survivors at each juncture, and who will be revealed as the next alien doppelganger.