John Carpenter’s The Thing, from 1982, is now getting a re-release and it’s pretty scary and entertaining stuff, though I always get the feeling that nothing in it lives up to the tremendous opening section.

An American scientific expedition, marooned in the Antarctic frozen wastes, is set upon by a group of crazy Norwegian scientists intent on killing a runaway dog, which turns out to be the physical form taken by a shape-shifting alien invader, set to infect them all.

The tension of that beginning is superb, and the way the sinister dog itself is built into the story is inspired. From then on, things get a little broad for my tastes, though always watchable.