I've seen this movie so many times. I own it twice on DVD, I own it on Blu-Ray and I even have a copy on the now defunct HD-DVD format. I regret not seeing it in the theaters back in 1982. I don't know why I didn't go. I was certainly old enough to appreciate it. Instead, I saw "E.T.". I got swept up in happy little alien fever. I went with the crowd. All I had to do was wander over to a different screen and watch Carpenter's creation in all its paranoid glory. Sigh...

As with all good movies, music, or books, I experience something new every time I view it. I keep trying to piece together how the Thing spread throughout the camp. I keep looking for clues. Like when Blair performs an autopsy on the recently roasted Thing. While he's presenting his thoughts on what the Thing is, he absent-mindedly taps his pencil eraser on the steaming carcass, crosses his arms and brings the pencil eraser perilously close to his mouth. Then he makes a talking point by waving the pencil in the air and ever so briefly...it touches his lip! Did he infect himself? Is it too late?!?!? Has the Thing spread itself to Blair?!?! These kinds of moments fill the movie. It so suspenseful and so paranoid. And the isolation is torture. You know they all have nowhere to go. All those nameless men. Well, they aren't nameless, it's just that it's hard to remember them all. And the strange thing about it is, we still seem to care about them. I think that's because Carpenter has done such a masterful job of building the suspense through threat and isolation that we can't help but subconsciously put ourselves into their places.

There are so many great scenes. The opening helicopter-chases-dog scene. The horror of finding the Thing in the dog pen. The death and subsequent transformation of Norris. Wow! Is it gory! And in this particular case, I think the gore is absolutely necessary. That's kind of the knock on this film. The gore has been classified as extreme. And it is. But this is a story about such a faceless, out-of-this-world beast that it all seems so appropriate. And those effects. I don't think I need to say anymore than others have already posited about the very special practical effects by Rob Bottin. They have to be the best I've ever seen.

Then there's the "blood test" scene. All of the men at the Antarctic station volunteer to give a blood sample and then have it tested, while tied to chairs, to see if it reveals which of them are actually the "Thing". One by one, a heated copper wire is placed into a petri dish of blood from each one of the men. Seeing the smoke rise from the wire when its touched to the dish of blood brings some relief. Will the next dish be Thing-free? You'll have to watch it and see for yourself. The setup and execution of this scene is one of the most intense and frightening things I've ever watched.

I am very happy that this film has found it's place thanks to Home Video. It's now considered a Horror/Sci-Fi classic. It is without a doubt my favorite Horror movie, perhaps my favorite monster flick and quite possibly my top SciFi feature. It's that good.