The Thing is one of my favorite movies, too. Despite all the gore, the fear that the movie evokes is mostly because of the isolation and paranoia. The atmosphere at the start of the movie is already like a prison. A dozen men are stuck together with no way out and keep trying to prove to each other they are the manliest one, and if they don't, everyone else steps all over them.

They can barely communicate in a civilized manner when things are fine, so obviously they become even more uncooperative as the situation gets worse. They quickly turn from their usual yelling and insulting each other to almost starting a shootout over who gets to be in charge. The alien is less of a villain and more of a vehicle to drive up the existing tensions between those men, and that is where the real horror lies: they could beat the thing, but probably won't because they cannot stop trying to out-macho each other.

Unrelated: I recently rewatched it, and at first I had not realized there isn't a single scene in the entire movie without a loud wind howling in the background. Even when there is music, the wind doesn't stop for a second.