and
But since I’ve already watched those movies, let’s talk about They Live instead.
Released in 1988, who those true Americans in the audience reading this will recognize as the year Van Halen released their landmark album OU812, They Live was directed by John Carpenter in what I tend to consider the tail end of his ‘golden age’, which lasted from the late 70s to around the mid 90s. So many interesting films to come out of that period of time: Halloween I & II, The Thing, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, Starman if you pretend it’s a film about Jack Knight and not a romantic drama, just a nice gooey chunk of goodness for your brain to enjoy. Maybe not all of them are what you might call the pinnacle of film, but they were inventive and innovative in an era of increasingly worthwhile science-fiction, horror and action films, and that’s where my interests lie.
In a city that is probably San Francisco, a man known only as Nada (professional wrestler and kilt enthusiast Rowdy Roddy Piper) arrives in town looking for work. With only the clothes on his back and a backpack full of tools, Nada ends up staying in the local shantytown, doing manual labor at the local construction site. It’s not glamorous work or work that allows you to afford the basic cost of living apparently, but it’s honest work, jobs that Nada and his new friend Frank (Keith David) are willing to do in these tough and troubled times.
All that changes when Nada comes across some unusual sunglasses, left behind by some shifty people taking up residence in a nearby church. When worn, they reveal to Nada a vision of the world that he never thought possible. Everything around him; billboards, magazines, television, is in fact subliminal propaganda designed to keep humanity docile and unaware of their environment. Not to mention the fact that some people, especially cops, politicians and news reporters, aren’t even people at all, but are in fact god damn aliens. Nada quickly finds himself caught up in the guerilla war between these god damn aliens and the paltry amount of humans with access to the special sunglasses, which apparently makes up the entirety of the resistance movement as far as we know. Throw in copious amounts of gunplay, a bit of romance and the longest fight scene to ever take place in a parking lot and you got yourself a movie.
Although They Live came out in the late 80s, a time when we thought Guns N’ Roses was the greatest band in human history, it feels much more like a sci-fi film from the pre-Star Wars 70s, like a Westworld or Soylent Green. Aside from literally naming the protagonist ‘nothing’, which sounds like something pulled from a Frederik Pohl paperback, and the most blatantly obvious moral lesson since Reefer Madness, there’s a distinct feeling of ‘old school’ that runs throughout the film. Whether it’s the bizarrely low budget looking aliens (creepy, but nowhere near what Carpenter had accomplished in The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China) or the way the characters exist more as set pieces than people. Which sounds like an insult, and maybe it is for those types of films, but with They Live it seems like the point was to make that kind. It would make sense, seeing as two years previous he directed Big Trouble out of a desire to make a kung-fu movie, a genre that also saw its greatest prominence in the 70s. Maybe the late 80s were the John Carpenter equivalent of a Throwback Thursday? Who can say for sure?
It’s a little bit goofy, to be honest. Piper tries to go for some Arnie-esque one liners that make him less like a badass freedom fighter and more like he’s trying to troll Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event. The whole movie in general is full of weird dialogue, weird scenes that may or may not be intentional though, so it’s actually kind of a plus I guess? I don’t know man, the concept is cool, there’s plenty of action, and it’s just stupid enough that you can have fun with it. Try it out this Halloween.
Released in 1988, who those true Americans in the audience reading this will recognize as the year Van Halen released their landmark album OU812, They Live was directed by John Carpenter in what I tend to consider the tail end of his ‘golden age’, which lasted from the late 70s to around the mid 90s. So many interesting films to come out of that period of time: Halloween I & II, The Thing, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, Starman if you pretend it’s a film about Jack Knight and not a romantic drama, just a nice gooey chunk of goodness for your brain to enjoy. Maybe not all of them are what you might call the pinnacle of film, but they were inventive and innovative in an era of increasingly worthwhile science-fiction, horror and action films, and that’s where my interests lie.
In a city that is probably San Francisco, a man known only as Nada (professional wrestler and kilt enthusiast Rowdy Roddy Piper) arrives in town looking for work. With only the clothes on his back and a backpack full of tools, Nada ends up staying in the local shantytown, doing manual labor at the local construction site. It’s not glamorous work or work that allows you to afford the basic cost of living apparently, but it’s honest work, jobs that Nada and his new friend Frank (Keith David) are willing to do in these tough and troubled times.
All that changes when Nada comes across some unusual sunglasses, left behind by some shifty people taking up residence in a nearby church. When worn, they reveal to Nada a vision of the world that he never thought possible. Everything around him; billboards, magazines, television, is in fact subliminal propaganda designed to keep humanity docile and unaware of their environment. Not to mention the fact that some people, especially cops, politicians and news reporters, aren’t even people at all, but are in fact god damn aliens. Nada quickly finds himself caught up in the guerilla war between these god damn aliens and the paltry amount of humans with access to the special sunglasses, which apparently makes up the entirety of the resistance movement as far as we know. Throw in copious amounts of gunplay, a bit of romance and the longest fight scene to ever take place in a parking lot and you got yourself a movie.
Although They Live came out in the late 80s, a time when we thought Guns N’ Roses was the greatest band in human history, it feels much more like a sci-fi film from the pre-Star Wars 70s, like a Westworld or Soylent Green. Aside from literally naming the protagonist ‘nothing’, which sounds like something pulled from a Frederik Pohl paperback, and the most blatantly obvious moral lesson since Reefer Madness, there’s a distinct feeling of ‘old school’ that runs throughout the film. Whether it’s the bizarrely low budget looking aliens (creepy, but nowhere near what Carpenter had accomplished in The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China) or the way the characters exist more as set pieces than people. Which sounds like an insult, and maybe it is for those types of films, but with They Live it seems like the point was to make that kind. It would make sense, seeing as two years previous he directed Big Trouble out of a desire to make a kung-fu movie, a genre that also saw its greatest prominence in the 70s. Maybe the late 80s were the John Carpenter equivalent of a Throwback Thursday? Who can say for sure?
It’s a little bit goofy, to be honest. Piper tries to go for some Arnie-esque one liners that make him less like a badass freedom fighter and more like he’s trying to troll Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event. The whole movie in general is full of weird dialogue, weird scenes that may or may not be intentional though, so it’s actually kind of a plus I guess? I don’t know man, the concept is cool, there’s plenty of action, and it’s just stupid enough that you can have fun with it. Try it out this Halloween.
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