‘You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.’

Director: John Carpenter
Written by: Ray Nelson (story), John Carpenter
Cast: Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, George ‘Buck’ Flower

Year / Country: 1988, USA
Running Time: 90 mins.

The concept for They Live is brilliant. A drifter (wrestler Roddy Piper) discovers an underground movement. When he puts on a pair of sunglasses – produced by this movement, he finds that the world is dominated by an evil alien race. Street signs and television programmes contain hidden messages, such as ‘obey’, ‘buy’ and ‘consume’ and normal people suddenly look like monsters. The whole world is enslaved by these aliens.

The drifter finds a few allies and cooks up a plan to disrupt the alien operations. If they can turn off the signal at the source, the world will have a serious wake-up call. But the aliens are everywhere and they have human accomplices to help them. These humans sold-out their own species in return for promotions and bigger bank accounts.

In this entertaining story, director Carpenter inserted a not-so-well hidden meaning himself. People are only focussed on wealth and making more money. Thus, they are vulnerable to becoming slaves to their own greed. The humans in They Live are sedated and therefore insensitive to their surroundings, only wanting to consume more. The poor have become the unwilling worker bees for the rich.

This message runs through the film, but luckily Carpenter does not take himself too seriously. They Live is above all a fun sci-fi/action thriller with lots of tongue-in-cheek humour. Highlights are Piper’s discovery of the alien conspiracy, a ridiculous wrestling match between Piper and Keith David in an alley and the final minutes in which both aliens and humans get a big surprise.

Rating:

Biography: John Carpenter (1948, New York) was born in Carthage, New York. He attended Western Kentucky University and then USC film school in Los Angeles. While there, he started work on his feature debut Dark Star (1974). Although Carpenter has directed films in numerous other genres (dark comedy, sci-fi, romance), he is known primarily for making horror films: Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982), et cetera. He is also known as the ‘Master of Horror’ or the ‘Prince of Darkness’ (after one of his films).

Filmography (a selection): Revenge of the Colossal Beast (1962, short), Gorgo Versus Godzilla (1969, short), Dark Star (1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), They Live (1988), Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Village of the Damned (1995), Escape from L.A. (1996), Vampires (1998), Ghosts of Mars (2001)