My Opinion, For What It's Worth

Rating: 10/10 (12 October 2003)

This picture is horrible. Just horrible. No touchy-feely messages or situations, no annoying "dark comedy" relief, no wall-to-wall, headache-causing audio-visual effects such as are found in most more recent monster flicks. Just enveloping, grinding tension and suspense, with paralyzing hostile-creature sequences.
In short, it's everything a monster movie ought to be.
Having grown up in the 50s and 60s and thoroughly enjoying the 1951 "Thing From Another World" and all the renowned monster pix of that time, I'll say now that this movie, for me, tops them all. I agree most heartily with many co-commentators that the atmosphere (right from the opening titles), special effects, characters and musical score are near matchless among sci fi-horror efforts. I've seen the movie easily over a dozen times, and to this very day I still tense up when anticipating certain scenes. Ennio Morricone's potent, steel-cold score, distributed through the picture with a master's perfection, compounds every gripping situation in the story-but then, what else should we expect from the man who gave us the famous "Clint Eastwood Theme Song" in "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" (yeah, it was him!)? Also, the film is not ruined by stupid "politically corrected" character stereotyping, such as is seen in "Independence Day"; you can actually relate to these poor, besieged stiffs, which is really essential in achieving the suspense needed in any horror movie. I refuse to inject any spoilers- I'll only say that this John Carpenter thriller about Antarctic scientists thrown into a tense, deadly battle against a vicious alien intruder deserves a seat alongside "King Kong" (1933), "7th Voyage of Sinbad", "Alien" and very few others as one of the greatest monster movies of all time...that's my opinion, for what it's worth.
My suggestion for viewing "The Thing" is: at night, alone, preferably in the wintertime, with a large screen and multiple speakers if available. If you're a connoisseur of chick-flicks or "E. T."-type movies, forget it.
10/10 on this one, folks. God bless one and all.