"I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off."

Rating: 10/10 (15 January 2018)

I've of course seen this film many times before, edited for TV, on VHS, laserdisc, DVD, and now in crisp HD, and am happy to report that John Carpenter's classic horror film still holds up today as just as shocking, grotesque, claustrophobic, and as scary as hell as when it first came out in 1982. Without spoiling too much of the plot, Kurt Russell is part of a US outpost in Antarctica who encounter an alien life form that kills and then assumes the form of outpost members, leaving those still human unable to figure out who is friend or foe, ALA "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." A remake of the Howard Hawks produced "The Thing from Another World," Carpenter ups the suspense tenfold by not having one alien terrorizing the isolated team, but by having any and all of the characters a potential enemy. It's a chilling moment when a desperate Russell tells the group, "I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human." Members of that team are played by an excellent and varied group of actors who include Keith David, Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, and other character actors you'd know their face if not their names. The script is credited to Bill Lancaster (son of Burt), and is his only original film script outside of "The Bad News Bears" (arguably the greatest sports film of all time) and an okay sequel, "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan." The script is stripped down and efficient in a way that perfectly matches Carpenter's directorial sensibilities. When this film came out it was considered wildly gory in it's grotesque graphic violence, courtesy of special effects wizard Rob Bottin. SPOILER ALERT! I remember my mind exploding the first time is saw the a head extricate itself form it's burning body and then sprout spider-like legs to escape. The same can be said for the chest cavity opening up to bite off Richard Dysart's arms, and for so many other moments of the film that were a result of Bottin's truly monstrous creations, which are masterfully shot and edited by Carpenter for full cinematic impact. The film also greatly benefits from sharp photography by Carpenter's regular DP Dean Cundey, who'd later go on to work regularly with Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard on high profile Hollywood films. And enough cannot be said for the score by Ennio Morricone, which interestingly sounds more similar to a John Carpenter score than a Morricone score. Morricone at this point had done some work for Hollywood films ("Days of Heaven" and "The Exorcist II"), but this is the film that really started landing him some bigger Hollywood pictures titles, like "The Untouchables" and "In the Line of Fire." It's also fun to watch rewatch this film if you've seen Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" due to Tarantino's many nods to Carpenter's film, whether he did them intentional or not, Overall, if there was ever a perfect marriage of science fiction and horror by a quality filmmaker, "The Thing" is that film.