They Live (John Carpenter)

Back in the late 1970’s John Carpenter began an incredible run of directing some of the most influential genre pictures ever made. Debuting with the cult classic Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Halloween (1978) the template for every slasher movie made since. This culminated in arguably his best work The Thing (1982) which was underrated at the time but is now seen as a classic, and one of his many collaborations with Kurt Russell. 

Then something happened, suddenly Carpenter lost something and began to churn out films like Starman (1984) and Prince of Darkness (1987) not terrible films but not living up to the promise of his early pictures at all. Unfortunately this slump continued and has lead to some truly tragic films like Vampires (1998) and Ghosts of Mars (2001). In the middle of this supposed slump where critics rubbed their hands with glee every time a film was released with Carpenters name on it, he produced two pretty decent films which have been largely overlooked, In the mouth of madness (1995) and They Live.

They Live is set in the near future of the time it was made in the 1980’s but is never clear what year. The politics of Reagans America are in full swing, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. A Drifter named Nada (WWF Wrestler Roddy Piper) comes to an unnamed city in search of work and sets himself up at a homeless camp around an old church. Something isn’t right; people are coming and going in a hurried fashion in the middle of the night and the television keeps being interrupted by fuzzy broadcasts of a man warning of some alien conspiracy, giving the viewer a headache. The police fully equipped with riot gear then raid the camp one night. Nada manages to escape and goes back the next day to the ruins of the church to discover a box of sunglasses hidden in the wall. When he puts the sunglasses on the movie kicks off and becomes great fun as Nada sees the world beneath an illusion created by a skeletal race of alien beings who are the rich and powerful of America.

Everyday objects like billboards, traffic signals and magazines are secretly giving out signals to consume, sleep, marry and re-produce. Stumbling around in disbelief for a while Nada decides to do something about it and tools himself up and goes on a violent alien killing spree leading to the classic line; ‘I have come to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum’. Along with fellow drifter Frank (Keith David) and TV producer Holly (Meg Foster), Nada seeks out the resistance to expose the alien menace.

This is a fantastic B-Movie about paranoia that has something to say about the great class divide in America but above all it’s a great fun, violent movie the likes of which they don’t seem to make anymore. Although a wrestler you will be surprised at how good Roddy Piper is here. He has a screen presence and charisma that wasn’t seen in a wrestler turned actor until The Rock came along and makes Nada one of the great heroes of the 80’s B-Movie along with Bruce Campbell’s Ash and Mel Gibson’s Mad Max.

The film also has one of the longest fight scenes ever filmed where Nada tries to convince Frank to put on the sunglasses in an alley. The actors decided to keep it as real as possible rehearsing it for three weeks and the result is a brutal 5 minutes and 20 seconds long.

Unfortunately for those of us who saw it first time around there will probably be a remake on the way in a Hollywood currently bankrupt of originality. Hopefully it will be more along the lines of the Dawn of the Dead revamp than the recent abysmal version of Carpenters The Fog. Catch this now so that you can join in with the people slating the inevitable lacklustre version with the classic ‘ not as good as the original’.

Trivia: Roddy Piper's character never gives his name nor is he referred to by name throughout the entire movie. He is simply referred to as "Nada" in the credits, which means "nothing" in Spanish.