After the contamination of a scientific Arctic team from an unknown alien creature, the group must figure out who is really who in order to stay alive.

Rating: 9/10 (22 November 2015)

In the early Fall of 1978, Terrence Malick (Badlands, A Thin Red Line) released his take on deception and turmoil on a rural farm with Days of Heaven, which featured the young faces of Richard Gere and Brooke Adams. Accompanying the 29 year old actors is a majestic and graceful score by Italian composer Ennio Morricone, who created one of the most iconic sounds in a new generation of Westerns. Around this time, a bright eyed and passionate director began piecing together one of the most memorable scores for a film that would become one of the most iconic slashers of our time. Four years later, both masters of iconicism would join hands melding Morricone's strings with Carpenter's terror, creating one of the greatest pieces of science fiction horror cinema has ever seen.
Taking place at United States National Science Institute Station 4 in Antarctica, a helicopter manned by a Norwegian sniper attempts to shoot a wild dog making its way to the research station. After a brief shootout, the Alaskan Malamute is taken in by gruff sled-dog handler Clark (Richard Masur), while fellow researcher Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) and helicopter pilot R. J. MacReady (Kurt Russel) investigate a nearby Norwegian research facility. Finding the entire camp in ruin, and a mysterious, twisted corpse containing two faces lying amidst the charred facility, they fly it back for Dr. Blair (Wilfrud Brimley) to look at. Soon afterwards the dog, now caged with the others and containing the creature, mutates into a biomass of flesh and bone that is quickly contained by a flamethrower wielding Childs (Keith David). The creatures autopsy reveals that the thing inside of the animal can mimic other life forms, putting the rest of the crew on edge as they quickly try and figure out who the creature has infected.
Originally a short story entitled Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr., The Thing is a remake of a 1951 science fiction film The Thing From Another Planet by Howard Hawkes and Christian Nyby. Playing more closely to the story Hawkes and Nyby adapted, John Carpenter weaves a beautiful tapestry of twisted design between a veil of claustrophobia as each member of the research team becomes more and more paranoid over who is who. As the creature makes itself apparent, showing us one beautiful transformation after the other, the room we are given to move around is slowly cut off, adding to the creeping feeling of isolation and hopelessness.
With the tension John Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Lancaster creates as things unfold is all too palpable, causing each scene to build on top of each other in Jenga like fashion. What stirs each paranoid glance, each unsure movement, and what ultimately goes bump in the night is Ennio Morricone's magnificent post-Western score, raising hairs with each sound. Whether it's a wide shot of the frozen Arctic tundra or a close-up of the thing ripping out of a fellow teammate, the music behind each scene raises it to new heights that only a master composer could.
Just as The Thing is a film that you can watch, it is also one you can listen to and feel, with each contribution working with equal and powerful forces. Ranging from suffocating tension to grotesque and sudden outbursts, every frame is one for your senses. While Todd C. Ramsay's editing comes off as a bit too ill-guided, forcing multiple scenes transitioning to pick up too many pieces, it doesn't cause us to deviate from the story. Whether it's John Carpenters patient build up, Rob Bottin's and Stan Winston's horrifying and undeniably ahead of its times special effects, or Ennio Morricone's hair raising score, The Thing is a film that cannot be forgotten.