John Carpenter....

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 1998)

Was on a hot-streak when "The Thing" came out. He had Halloween, a landmark film for horror, the very good "The Fog" and the cult classic "Escape from New York" under his belt, so he tried his hand on sci-fi/horror combination (two genres which he knew best).
The thing succeeds because people like to see gore, and while that concept was sort of new to Carpenter (earlier movies were almost goreless), he succeeds in making one of the gorest films in history.
While the movie sometimes moves at a glacial pace, the story is well developed (like an X-files episode), the characters are at least identifable (sometimes, movies with alot of people in situations, I sometimes forget whose who!). Not really scary, there is a lot of suspense and tension built up, because
1. The people don't know who the alien (thing) is and
2. They don't seem to like each other and would have no problems blowing each other away.
For a good movie (skip the popcorn on this one), with the right mood music, darkened lighting, plenty of gore and tense atmospherical cinematography, try out "The Thing"