Rating:8/10
There are many things, no pun intended, that make The Thing a bit of a different sci-fi/horror movie than most.  Sure, it has a lot of the elements of the movie Alien, but in the long run, The Thing came out first.  First off, this is an all male cast.  Now, about this time, many people would be complaining about that, and the fact that there is no blah blah blah love story thrown in somewhere.  With this, we don't even get to hear them talk about their wives or girlfriends.  This gets right down to business.  There were several times during this movie that I jumped a little out of my chair, but that is a good thing.  It means I was glued to the movie, and when John Carpenter would throw his scare at me, I would not expect it, but it would also help in getting my tension built up.  It was very unpredictable and I loved the ending.  There was just many things about this movie, that didn't make this a typical Hollywood movie, thank God.  the one piece of tension that was created so well was the theme of paranoia.  Wow!  You could almost relate as if this was happening to you.  A well done movie.