Nominated for: Worst Musical Score (Ennio Morricone) Widely regarded as one of the greatest film composers of his time, Ennio Morricone had established his reputation on Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns before moving on to more mainstream Hollywood productions, all the time moving from his budget-enforced experimental roots towards more traditional orchestral scores. When collaborating with John Carpenter on tense alien shapeshifter picture The Thing, though, Morricone worked closely with the director to utilise Carpenter's trademark minimalist electronic sound. Like earlier Carpenter scores for Halloween and Assault On Precinct 13, these simple themes perfectly keep the tension up throughout. The Thing was not highly regarded on release with critics viewing it as fuelled by excessive, disgusting effects rather than character and story - it is now, however, established as one of the greats of its type (the Chicago Film Critics Association had it as the 17th scariest movie of all). Morricone's score was caught up in the early criticism of the film, but, like the rest of it, the music has grown in stature and reputation. That the prequel/remake in 2011 reused and remixed so much of Morricone's score is the perfect demonstration of how central it was to the film's success.
