They Live
Directed by:
John CarpenterScreenplay:
John CarpenterCinematography:
Gary B. KibbeCast:
Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, Peter Jason, Raymond St. Jacques, Jason Robards III, Sy Richardson, Susan Barnes, Tommy Morrison, John F. Goff, Al Leong (more)Plots(1)
Nada (Roddy Piper) arrives in Los Angeles, finds work on a construction site and a bed in a homeless camp. He notices the extent to which the people around him seem obsessed with television and obtaining material wealth, and one night, when he stumbles across a cache of special sunglasses, he finds out why. The American middle-classes have been taken over by capitalist aliens who use television and advertising to keep humans docile and ignorant about what is really going on. The sunglasses reveal the aliens as they really are and, with the aid of the glasses and a submachine gun, Nada begins to fight back. (StudioCanal UK)
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Reviews (2)
The degeneration of contemporary pop culture, which shows us stories of how a humble peasant came upon a great truth and then cleverly defeated it on his own terms, we can feel that They Live is actually a typical victim of 80s primitivism, where the truth is ideally reached with a fist, an elbow, or straight up with a shotgun. At least Carpenter does not mask in any way that the solution to the problem was basically reached by a muscular teenager who doesn't read Nietzsche in the evening, but rather Hustler and Guns & Ammo. The means by which he then seeks satisfaction simply correspond to this. And besides, Carpenter was very good at macho shoot-’em-ups and beat-’em-ups in the eighties, so it's a joy to watch.
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The worst Carpenter I’ve seen so far, and that also includes Ghost of Mars. Unfortunately, I didn’t look at the genre category and I expected horror and what I got instead was a silly, satirical and almost self-parody of science fiction that becomes increasingly boring with every passing minute. Unfortunately, I can’t even highlight the music, because unlike other Carpenter films, this time it really got on my nerves.
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