Mary Elizabeth Winstead recently revealed details about the premise of the prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 horror classic "The Thing."

Playing Kate Lloyd, a gutsy Antarctica scientist, Winstead ("Scott Pilgrim Vs The World") faces off against a shape-shifting alien that mercilessly corrals her and the staff of a Norwegian research outpost into a deadly showdown.

"It's a really great, slow-burn sci-fi action film -- it's sort of creepy and refreshing in terms of the other horror sci-fi films that have been out lately," Winstead said in an interview with The Press Association. "I think it's something new and fun so I'm excited."

Based on events from the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr., the Universal Pictures film is helmed by Matthijs Van Heijningen, who worked from a script by "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer ("A Nightmare on Elm Street" remake).

"It's a prequel to the John Carpenter version so it's set in the same time, in the 80s," Winstead explained, "and it takes place in Antarctica at a Norwegian base there so it's a largely Norwegian cast aside from myself, Joel Edgerton and Eric Olsen.

"It starts off really slow, then this paranoia builds to when we realize this creature has broken out and is becoming different people and taking on the shape of the people in the base."

Producing the prequel are Strike Entertainment's Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, whose credits include "Children of Men" and "Dawn Of The Dead." David Foster will executive produce.

Van Heijningen was previously a commercial director. He is also working on "Army of the Dead" for Warner Bros. with Zack Snyder ("300," "Watchmen").

The film is scheduled for a 2011 release.