The Thing, the alien monster movie in theaters next month, is a prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 movie of the same name, and the handing-of-the-baton is actually fairly elegant as far as these things go. In the original, a crew of scientists in a remote Antarctic research outpost fights off a murderous creature that can assume human form. Also, by the time it comes across Kurt Russell and friends, said creature has already rampaged through a nearby camp of Norwegian researchers. In the new one, set three days before the old one, the destruction of that Norwegian camp is shown. Does that mean no one survives the remake? That’s bad news for its stars, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton, but good news for moviegoers who want to see as many gruesome murders perpetrated by aliens as possible. For example: in just over a minute of this red band trailer, we get a guy’s face subtly splitting in half, a woman’s body unsubtly erupting into non-human form, and an alien arm spearing a chest in a move heavily indebted to Scorpion’s “get over here” technique. On the one hand, this looks like good, clean fun — it could spawn more prequels forever, with the Thing, in three day intervals, on a tour of death and destruction through Antarctic researchers. On the other, this is another step back for Hollywood’s realistic portrayal of the day to day lives of scientists living and working in obscure research outposts. Surely, they don’t all end up butchered by aliens?