"Why don't we wait here for a little while...see what happens."

Rating: 9/10 (6 November 2011)

John Carpenter's intense, grim, shocking, and garish monster movie has transcended its poor box office performance back in 1982 to take its place as one of the great experiences of its kind, and one of the director's finest achievements. A more faithful adaptation of the John W. Campbell, Jr. short story "Who Goes There?" than the 1951 Howard Hawks production "The Thing from Another World", it gets a lot of impact from the central conceit of the story, dropped by the makers of the Hawks movie.
Here, the rampaging alien has the ability to assume the appearance of any living thing that it consumes, leading to an overwhelming sense of paranoia as the men of the story have to come to terms with the reality that they can't trust each other any more.
The Antarctic setting is perfect for such a story, with our characters completely cut off from contact with civilization, isolated and forced to work to save themselves. While the story is an extremely serious one, with a tone of dread established immediately, there are memorable doses of humour at select points that provide much needed and highly amusing relief. Ennio Morricone's subtle, scary music, unfairly nominated for a Razzie at the time, is appropriate to the story. Carpenter collaborates with a first rate creative team (especially production designer John Lloyd and cinematographer Dean Cundey) who lend their considerable talents to make an incredible looking movie. Carpenter uses his standard Panavision aspect ratio of 2.35:1 to arrange people and objects within the frame to great effect. Makeup effects expert Rob Bottin creates one of the most striking monsters to be seen in the science fiction genre, displaying a delightful macabre imagination all the way through; the scenes are now indelibly etched in the minds of those that have seen them. (Stan Winston's contribution, done as a favour in order to help Bottin with the workload, shouldn't be overlooked, either.)
Carpenter's frequent leading man Kurt Russell delivers a superbly understated performance as the reluctant hero MacReady, and receives rock solid supporting performances by a well chosen cast of familiar character actors - Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, David Clennon, Keith David, Richard Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, and Thomas Waites.
Carpenter's somewhat slow pace - at least in the early going - allows the creepiness and sense of mystery to really take hold until the nature of the threat is finally exposed. The story devastatingly illustrates just how ugly things can get when a chain of command is broken and a group of men start to mistrust and fear each other. (It's a brave move on the part of Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Lancaster to exclude female characters, something that wouldn't fly nowadays.)
No matter how badly this may have fared both critically and commercially back in 1982, its following has done nothing but grown stronger in the over 30 years since its release. It represents a great effort from everybody involved.
Nine out of 10.