What to do, when you can't escape or trust anybody?

Rating: 7/10 (6 March 2010)

First time round, in 1982, this was a scary movie. Having seen it again, recently, it's not as scary as, say, Hallloween (1978), Alien (1979) and others. More importantly, nearly thirty years later, it's now much easier for me to spot the shortcomings of the narrative.
But, I'll ignore those so as not to spoil the story which I first saw in the 1951 version (largely produced by Howard Hawks). For its time, that also was a scary movie (for a ten year old) which also served as a political metaphor about the dangers of the Soviet Union and communism. This 1982 version, however, avoids that trap by eliminating all of the military aspects so prevalent in the earlier version.
Essentially, the story follows the book written by John Campbell quite well (unlike the 1951 production), showing how a particularly vicious alien attempts to take over and literally absorb – into itself – the scientists and support personnel at an American Antarctic base station. In a series of graphically violent situations, we see how the alien infiltrates and, when finding one of the humans alone, attacks, envelops and eventually takes on the physical appearance of its victims.
Hence, creeping paranoia and mutual distrust invade the humans. And, very cleverly, the script and direction make sure that, as viewers, we can never be entirely certain about the true identity of each character as the story reaches its inevitable conclusion – and, by implication, beyond.
The special alien effects are still worthy of special mention, particularly as it was all done without any help from CGI. The early scene in the dog pen, when we first see the nasty beast, can never be forgotten, I think; the destroyed Norwegian base camp is suitably spooky and scary; and the scene where MacReady (Kurt Russell) conducts his own blood tests to weed out the good humans from the bad ones is a tour de force in suspense. Added to all of that is Ennio Morricone's brooding, throbbing, menacing sound track – pervasively shadowing the action, its beat emphasizing the time ticking away as the desperate men battle each other and the alien.
Arguably, this is equally a movie about terror as much as horror: the terror of the malevolent unknown, and the horror of one's fellow man taking on the guise of that malevolence. To cap it all, there is no escape, even for the survivors – who may or may not be human anyway. Make your own assessment if you see this movie from John Carpenter, one of the true masters of terror and horror.
Recommended for all lovers of sci-fi who like to be scared witless.