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We're most afraid of the unknown; supernatural tales of the unpredictable and the unexplained can chill us to our bones, and have been staples of the science fiction and horror genres throughout cinema's history. Among the very best movies to play upon this conceit is John Carpenter's opus of terror, The Thing. It wasn't treated that way at first, though: Carpenter's shockingly grim vision was roundly panned as throwaway horror. The years have been kind to the film, however, and The Thing has moved beyond even cult classic status to being hailed among Carpenter's best works, and one of the finest cinematic remakes (although it's much truer to the original short story Who Goes There? than to The Thing From Another World). The Thing was truly before its time.

Set in Antarctica, The Thing concerns a group of American researchers - led by the gruff but competent MacReady (played by Carpenter stalwart Kurt Russell) - terrorized by a hideous alien creature that can perfectly impersonate any living thing. Its goal seems to be to impersonate and eliminate every member of the research team until it can find a way to attack the human population at large, and ultimately take over the Earth. As the body count grows, the team becomes increasingly suspicious of each other, looking for ways to identify impostors and quickly sacrificing their sanity in the name of self preservation. It's a gloriously gory picture, that counts dismemberment, a decapitated head that grows legs and scurries away, and a bursting dog among its gruesome delights; The Thing's makeup artistry and special effects are really something to behold.

With most of the work being done in-camera, everything from the tone-setting opening title to visualizing a massive spacecraft frozen in the ice took imagination and ingenuity. Even today, most of the effects are reasonably convincing. The special-edition DVD includes a fantastic feature-length documentary on the making of the film that reveals many of the challenges the movie presented and the techniques used to overcome them, and I highly recommend fans check it out (sadly, the doc was pillaged for the Blu-ray picture-in-picture feature, and is not included in its entirety on the high-definition version).

Carpenter was coming off a few certified hits, The Fog, Escape From New York, and Halloween, that were independently financed, and decided to make The Thing his first studio-financed outing, with a reported budget of $15 million. He hired cinematographer Dean Cundey, with whom Carpenter worked on nearly all of his previous works, to establish the gloomy tone of paranoia and isolation with his CinemaScope compositions, wide lenses, and willingness to let things go dark when they should be. Lighting in The Thing is both natural and harsh, often coming from sources within the frame-like hand-held flares or overhead fluorescents, making it unusually gritty for the time, yet camerawork is rarely handheld.

Carpenter is well known for writing his own scores, driving the story with catchy, synthesized-based melodies that, in cases like Halloween or Escape from New York, quickly become iconic. He didn't write the music for The Thing, however. Instead, he commissioned an intense, sometimes playful, score from legendary composer Ennio Morricone (perhaps best known for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but who has nearly 500 credits to his name). The Thing is a special picture in so many respects, which is why I return to it at least twice a year.

Beyond the makeup and camera tricks, putting aside the quality of the craftsmen at work, The Thing ultimately explores our deepest paranoias, the conflicting ways we deal with the most stressful situations, and our innate desire to rise up against the threat of assimilation. The creature is frightening, but the movie's most intense scenes involve characters in a room together trying to figure out who among them can be trusted, and who wants them dead. The Thing is Carpenter's most introspective and insightful work, and its character-driven plot was clearly a strong influence on James Cameron's The Abyss, only the latter replaced horror with awe.

The Thing is recognized as a genre classic, regularly showing up on "Best Sci-fi" and "Best Horror" lists. It has been a popular seller on DVD, HD-DVD (briefly), and again on Blu-ray, and spawned a decent video game a few years back. It was one of the first "demo-quality" home video releases, showcasing the beauty of matrixed surround sound from its stereo track (the opening helicopter scenes continue to be an impressive way to show off one's 5.1 system). Unfortunately, little of that love was apparent when The Thing received a mixed-to-harsh initial reception from critics, and pulled in a little over $13 million domestically. It was John Carpenter's first financial flop.

The most obvious target to blame for The Thing's theatrical misfire is E.T. Audiences fell in love with the diminutive alien who just wanted to eat Reese's Pieces and make a phone call a mere two weeks before Carpenter's slightly darker tale of an otherworldly visitor, astoundingly poor timing on Universal's part since they distributed both pictures. You could argue the movies were targeting different demographics, but everyone adored E.T., which doesn't leave much for The Thing. Gory thrills aside, The Thing also has a dire, apocalyptic resolution that probably would've been hard for general audiences to swallow no matter when the film had come out.

Perhaps it was the lack of excitement around The Thing that made it so easy to champion later on - there's nothing better for a movie aficionado than to find an unrecognized masterpiece and share it with friends, that satisfying feeling of championing unheralded greatness. The Thing deserved championing, and deserves to be on the shelf of any self-respecting movie lover.