Ennio Morricone may have been a singular figure in film composing, but never let it be said he wasn’t open to suggestion — especially when the suggestion came from a director with a knack for writing scores himself (and played Morricone’s music at his wedding). John Carpenter’s The Thing saw Morricone adapt elements of Carpenter’s synth-driven style to create something appropriately otherworldly for his biggest brush with the sci-fi genre, most evident in the heart-palpitating main theme. Curiously, the initial commercial release of the soundtrack was filled out by the more traditional orchestral pieces originally submitted for the film before Carpenter shelved them — thus giving us both the collaborative experiments and Morricone’s earlier envisionings of a more traditional thriller score, all of which nail the suspense needed to score a sci-fi horror film of this caliber.

– Nate Patrin