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They Live

"Hey, brothers, there's something new going down."
Starring: Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster
Rating: 7.5/10
Directed By: John Carpenter
Runtime: 94 minutes

I've read criticism of John Carpenter's career to the effect that a guy who produced such a litany of hits (Halloween, The Fog, Big Trouble in Little China, etc) throughout the unsurpassed first half of his career that after 1995's In the Mouth of Madness (one of the finest Lovecraft tributes ever put on celluloid) pretty much only excelled at selling out his seminal works to be butchered by substandard remakes and Hollywood profiteering. Mostly hogwash, and if indeed true hey, the guy's earned the right, I think. I also believe his Masters of Horror effort Cigarette Burns (2005), proves the master's eye is still sharp (and that episode is gorier than most of Carpenter's revered works). Granting the absurd argument, that would make They Live(1988) the last great Carpenter flick before the "decline." Carpenter is indeed in great form in They Live, providing a unique twist on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers notion of invasion by replacement and fuses it with Marvel Comics' Skrull's invasion by illusion (or in their case, shape-shifting) to produce an alien invasion picture that is as creative as it is insidious.

Rowdy Roddy Piper stars as a down on his luck drifter who gets a job at a construction site in an effort to turn his luck around. He meets Keith David, who befriends the stern Piper, who is in WWF shape. He proves it by having his shirt off a lot. Piper is a capable actor whose mic skills are legendary and Carpenter is a smart enough director to keep his dialog to a minimum. Carpenter builds this movie on his cultural perceptions and allows David to expound what Carpenter feels the 80s have brought humanity to when he tells Piper, "Everyone's out for themselves and looking to do you in at the same time." Carpenter's dialog is crisp and correct throughout the film. Hackers keep jacking the TV broadcasts to alert an uncaring public that the media has lulled us into sheep for the shearing. You don't need to tell Piper, whose insatiable curiosity provides him with the knowledge that the hackers are members of the poor shantytown where Keith David (and now himself) resides.

The Man is fully aware of this bullshit and sends cops and bulldozers in to raze shantytown. This a long sequence of people trying to escape and cop travesty upon the former citizens of shantytown, including a hacker and his blind priest associate on the receiving end of a savage beating. Piper the detective discovers a box of crazy 3D glasses that when put on allow Piper to see beyond the veil and realize the truth in advertising: We've been invaded by aliens! The Man is aliens! The aliens have us hooked good too, boy. Subliminal advertising on billboards, transmitters on stoplights, alien "plants" spreading the message of disfranchisement and submission. The thought control messages even transmit through the tv when shut off! The aliens are also everywhere, but all this can only be seen when the glasses are on! Otherwise, it's life as usual.

This knowledge is a lot for Piper to process (hey, even for a wrestler this is heavy stuff) but before he can even start to sort it out he's suspected in a Body Snatchers-style "get him before he blows our scam" scene that forces Piper to act ("that's like pouring perfume on a pig"). Piper not only kicks ass he kills two "cops" and steals their gear before continuing on a one-man alien killing spree ("Mama don't like tattletales."). Too many aliens entrenched for too long force Piper to kidnap Meg Foster (kinda a non-entity) to make a getaway. They head to her pad but before he can explain (too busy being a tired tough guy) she blasts him with a bottle of wine and throws him out a second story window. Piper's now where he was when he started: poor, alone and on the run.

Piper is a thinking man and he attempts to enlist new pal Keith David's assistance. David is reluctant, seeing as Piper killed all them dudes, and Piper's attempts to convince David of the alien conspiracy turns into one of the greatest street brawls of all time (fuck The Outsiders. Yeah, I said it). These guys kick the shit out of each other (the makeup is outstanding; both these guys look like they took it hard) and Piper goes all WWF, hitting David with a gut-wrench suplex, just to convince him to put the glasses on! Genius! Piper was never cleanly beaten by Hogan so eventually Keith David's wearin' the glasses and holy shit there's aliens among us! Luckily the resistance is keeping tabs on them and hustles them to a meeting where they're given 3D contacts and informed the aliens took over and solidified their power by the good old way of cash. Turns out they're "free enterprisers" and to them we're just a resource that can't wait to sell itself out for a "taste of the good life."

Now, Roddy Piper is a single-minded guy. He wants this process shut down now! He proceeds to fuck up a tv station and goes animal kill crazy. He and David figure a way to teleport "backstage" in one of the only logic flaws in this otherwise fine film: how is it Piper and Keith David can wander around and no one notices they're fugitives when Piper's image had been broadcast constantly on television? Anyway, mayhem ensues and in a SPOILER of a conflict Piper lives free and dies hard, taking down a communication satellite and and blowing Meg Foster the now-revealed alien sympathizer away!

They Live stands as a solid science fiction film and as an interesting view of our culture through the eyes of one of it's great directors. It abounds with nice nods, such as a film critic denouncing the works of George Romero and John Carpenter himself and Carpenter even throws in the gratuitous nudity at minute 90 - the last shot of the film. The dvd is indeed in widescreen with no commentary or anything. It does, however, recommend The Thing (1982) and the remake of Village of the Damned (1995) so you can see if the career argument bears out, I guess. It totally screams for an overhaul (like it should have been packaged the first time) but I guess the dvd companies "live, we sleep." The film is a wake-up call to break control and think for yourselves and there is no better way to start than a viewing of They Live.