Totally underrated!

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2010)

Now this movie was back when horror masters like John Carpenter where really hitting their stride! This 1982 remake of "The Thing from another world" was a sheer delight to all fans of gore and horror! Kurt Russel is perfectly cast as the boozing anti-social helicopter pilot R.J MacReady. His performance hit the right tone of the last guy you would ever expect to take up the mantel of leadership in a situation like this. Actually, I have to commend the entire cast in this movie. They all are individuals with strengths and weaknesses that come off as genuine. The big temptation in a movie like this is for everybody to ultimately rise to the challenge and work together to fight this alien menace. Here everybody is an individual that cant trust anybody else because the enemy is hidden and could be anybody. The setting of the barren ice Continent of Anarctica was so apt to convey the isolation of these men. This and the tight almost claustrophobic way the camera shoots tends to send shivers right up my spine. The soundtrack was truly scary with its primitive methodical tempo of impending doom. The special effects in this movie, for 1982 or even for today, were jaw dropping! I had nightmares for weeks at some of those transformation scenes. Like, remember when the thing-dog is put into the kennels and transforms into some horrific space creature and starts to absorb the other dogs. Or when the "test" to discover who is the thing is done and the blood literately screams and jumps out of the dish. I could go on and on. Whoever did the effects for this movie should have gotten at least an Oscar nomination. In conclusion, see this movie if you like horror, or even just suspense. You will not be disappointed!