People(mainly Hollywood actors and liberals) still complain about Joe going after Hollywood. The truth is that Joe didn't care about that. He was only worried about communists inside the US Government. The reason he got dragged into the Hollywood mess was because people in Hollywood were ratting each another out to the Commission out of jealously, envy, or just pure spite toward each other.
As far as the monster movies go I remember what was said about The Thing. The original source (story called 'Who Goes There?')had nothing to do with the Red Scare. It was nothing more than one the earliest attempts at an Alien Movie type story.