I’m looking for the name of a movie that my sister and I watched on TV as children of 6-8 years old- so it was around in the 90s, although it may have been older. MY memory is pretty fuzzy, but it stuck with me due to the ending.

It’s NOT the move “The Thing”, which is all I can find online. 🙁

It was a horror movie turned tragic at the end- an alien/creature is stuck in a remote base somewhere with a group of people. I believe it was due to a snowstorm. The alien has some evil power source/being trapped inside of a thing, and it’s actually trying to keep this thing contained the whole movie- however, the humans can’t communicate with it and don’t understand. Eventually, the creature is trapped in a room while the crew attempts to wait it out until help arrives. A human child befriends it and attempts communication- whereas the rest of the folks disregard it in horror.

At the end, the humans are prompted by the creature/child friendship to kill the creature…. just as it is raising a sign to hold up to the window that views into the room it’s contained in. The sign tragically says something that the creature has learned from the child, it was attempting to communicate something like “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Birthday” or “Happy New Years” or something.

I’ve searched online for hours to no avail- please help!!!