Day Three of the week-long horror-themed “Song of the Day” feature brings us one of the greatest pieces of film music ever composed. I’m talking about the score for John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing from Another World. The remake retains only the first two words of the original’s title, and that alone speaks volumes.

At first listen, one might mistake this music as being composed by John Carpenter himself—an accomplished film composer in his own right, known for scoring most of his own films. Its similarity to his iconic Halloween theme and even his earlier work on Assault on Precinct 13 makes the connection understandable. But one would be wrong to assume Carpenter had a hand in writing it. For the first time, Carpenter allowed someone else to compose the score, and for the task he selected none other than the Italian maestro Ennio Morricone.

By the time he collaborated with Carpenter on this sci-fi horror masterpiece, Morricone was already firmly established as one of the great masters of film composition. Audiences knew him best for his legendary work on Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti westerns” as well as numerous classics of Italian cinema. While Morricone’s full score for The Thing deserves a complete discussion of its own, I’ll focus on the one track that most powerfully captures the themes of horror, isolation, dread, and paranoia that make Carpenter’s film such a landmark: “Humanity (Part II).”

The piece opens with a heartbeat-like sequence that pulses steadily through most of its length. Strings layer on top of this rhythm, creating a mournful, dirge-like quality, while the bass thump lurks ominously just beneath the surface, as though danger is present but unseen. For much of its runtime, the music exudes a stark sense of emptiness, forcing the listener into the same suffocating isolation as the characters onscreen, stranded in the vast Arctic wasteland. The repetition and looping structure almost feel like a trap, with no release or resolution, mirroring the crew’s paranoia as suspicion and fear close in tighter than the snowstorms outside. Each cycle draws the listener deeper into a psychological cage, heightening the dread with its unrelenting stillness.

It isn’t until the final two minutes that the track breaks from its oppressive restraint. Here, Morricone channels Carpenter’s trademark minimalism with unsettling synthesizer tones, jagged and piercing against the steady backdrop. The music shifts from mournful to dissonant, almost alien, capturing the horrifying essence of the creature in its most grotesque form. This sharp intrusion is not just an auditory shock but a symbolic transformation—the moment when the lurking horror finally emerges from shadow into focus, confirming that the paranoia has been justified all along. It is this careful build, held back until the very end, that demonstrates Morricone’s mastery at fusing Carpenter’s sensibilities with his own, delivering a piece that is both restrained and devastatingly effective.

There’s a reason so many film aficionados cite Carpenter’s The Thing as one of their all-time favorites. Its reputation owes much to Carpenter’s skill as a filmmaker and editor, but Morricone’s score plays an equally crucial role in shaping the film’s atmosphere. “Humanity (Part II)” stands as one of the finest pieces of horror film music ever written.