Excellent fright-fest

Rating: 8/10 (2 November 2010)

I've been a fan of this movie since I saw it on video in the mid-80s -- John Carpenter truly accomplished a miracle here, integrating old-school classy paranoia-scares that exemplified Hawks' 50s version of the Campbell story with state-of-the-art gore effects that are so well designed by Rob Bottin and Stan Winston that you almost feel as if you're looking at some kind of surrealist art instead of a sci-fi movie effect. It doesn't really have any sci-fi ideas in it, but it's such a good horror movie that even sci-fi fans won't complain.
Kurt Russell plays a self-assured misfit in the company of other misfits, including a doctor played by Wilford Brimley. An extremely unfortunate encounter with a shape-shifting alien breaks down the bonds of human society and kindness and replaces them with the animal will to survive.
Ennio Morricone provides a stripped-down score that could easily be mistaken for one of director Carpenter's own. Carpenter's directing is easily what makes the movie memorable. I mean, let's face it this movie has the same plot as "Horror Express" and any number of horrible movies. In many ways it's obviously just an imitation of Ridley Scott's "Alien." But the Russell/Carpenter magic, this time for once played straight, redeems it as does Carpenter's effective suspenseful direction.
There's not a lot to say about this movie in my opinion. It's just a good gory suspense/horror flick. It doesn't insult your intelligence but it also doesn't challenge it. The monochromatic color scheme was a good idea because it distinguishes it from other films from this period. Rob Bottin's effects are so gory and extreme that they make me laugh, yet this movie still has the strength to shock and terrify the impressionable. A worthy re-make that put the lie to all the nonsense about remakes being inherently bad, this film will probably outlive even the Hawks/Nyby original.