Review by Gary Tooze

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• 16-page booklet with photos and essay (in Italian)

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Description: John Nada (Roddy Piper) is a quiet loner, a drifter who gets work where ever he can find it. While working on a construction site in L.A. and sleeping in a vagrant community at night, John stumbles upon a secret society of alien beings who pose as wealthy and powerful people in human society. John joins a rebel group committed to exposing this conspiracy, and becomes their reluctant leader and the only hope of the human race. Wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper is outstanding as the unassuming hero, playing the role with understated shock at what he uncovers and stubborn courage when he confronts it. Director John Carpenter laces the film with his trademark blend of humour and horror, making aliens that are hideously arrogant, greedy, and easy to hate, while the humans are confused and desperate in their struggle against them. The world looks a little different at the end of THEY LIVE, and one will never look at billboards, money, or sunglasses the same way again. The film contains the longest, and perhaps most realistic, fist fight in film history. Paying homage to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, the film was based on the short story EIGHT O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING by Ray Nelson.

 

 

***

In fact, the movie is a confusing blend of anti-Reagan satire and genre conventions that make the film every bit as crass, amoral, and mulishly blinkered in its many rightwing assumptions as the attitudes it is ostensibly attacking. It all adds up to an ideological incoherence that is rather suggestive in relation to the recent presidential election. How, one may wonder, could a majority of voters have opted for a one-time wimp who, if one accepts the persuasive evidence of the recent Iran-contra documentary Coverup, is one of the world’s biggest drug dealers yet got elected on promises to deal harshly with drug dealers? How does one reconcile this campaign’s designation of “liberal” as a dirty word — by Democrats and Republicans alike — with the plethora of liberal promises and sentiments sprinkled into Bush’s speeches? If such contradictions can’t be reconciled, we can at least try to understand some of the processes (such as combining liberal sentiments with right-wing rhetoric) that make them possible; and They Live may offer a few clues about how we’ve arrived at such an impasse.

John Nada (Piper) is grouchy because ever since he arrived in Los Angeles from Colorado, there's been nothing but trouble. People are rude, he lives on a campsite, and then the place is demolished by the cops. Things get worse when he happens across a hidden stash of special sunglasses. Donning a pair, his vision is literally reduced to black-and-white, revealing a terrible plot being perpetrated on the underclass. Skeletal aliens have invaded earth, taking on human guise, hogging the best jobs, and placing subliminal messages on hoardings and magazines which instruct the man on the street to 'Obey', 'Submit', 'Marry and Reproduce'. It's sunglasses for all as Nada and his pal Frank (David) attempt to infiltrate the media and expose the conspiracy.

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Audio :

Nutt'in except a 16-page booklet with photos and some essays in Italian.

BOTTOM LINE:
This is grassroots Carpenter and a lot of fun. I thought Rowdy Roddy was great and I wish there were a whole series of these films. They remind me of innocent 50's sci-fi cinema. Yes - it is all very obvious and simple but the Blu-ray does its job in establishing this as the best digital representation of this kitschy gem! If you haven't seen it - I say - go for it.