Some have argued that The Thing, the prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic, should never have been made. Here’s Ryan’s defence of a decent sci-fi chiller…

“The Thing has no subtext, no humour, no genre invention,” reads one review. “The Thing is so single-mindedly determined to keep you awake that it almost puts you to sleep,” moans another. “A foolish, depressing, overproduced movie that mixes horror with science fiction to make something that is fun as neither one thing or the other,” yet another critic seeths.

These quotes aren’t, as you may have imagined, plucked from the reviews of Matthijs van Heijningen Jr’s The Thing, out on Friday, but John Carpenter’s 1982 movie.

Now rightly regarded as a classic, it’s easy to forget just how venomous the critical response was towards Carpenter’s film – worse still, The Thing wasn’t a big hit with audiences,...