Budget: $3million
Directed By: John Carpenter
Based on a VERY short novel by Ray Nelson called Eight O'Clock in the Morning. This awesome 80's film has come almost full circle in meaning since it's original release.
I was never a big wrestling fan but the days I did watch it was back in the Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior days who were both my favourites.
You know I watched this film a long time ago like ten years old give or take a year. I didn't like it then, the fight was stupidly long and I didn't get it either.
Of course I like it now and I get it's an allegory for when people just want to bury their head in the sand and not see whats truly before them just to live an easy life.
This means SO SO much these days, I don't want to get political or drop some of my beliefs or truth bombs on you but I do believe we as a people go to far to extremes these days. I'm pretty much a centrist so extremes both sides really alienate me.
Anyway on with the film, we join a drifter played by Roddy, he doesn't really have a name He's just credited as Nada, which i'm sure is just like nothing, you know nada, nowt, zero etc. America is in a massive economic crash and finding work is hard. The every man is hitting rock bottom but the rich are getting richer and more powerful.
But it there's an insidious reason for this, a reason no one can see. After befriending Frank a fellow worker he's taken to a shanty town where he get a bite to eat and rest so long as he helps out there. While watching TV that night the broadcast is interrupted by some hackers.
They warn that people are being controlled by them! and we need to see it, when the interruption is fixed, people complain about a headache. Nada later see's the leader of the shanty town sneaking off to a church and follows him. He watches them moving boxes around and is then discovered by the blind preacher who oddly feels his face all over.
Police come later on, they destroy the shanty town and burn out the church. Nada sneaks into the church later on the next day to see what the resistance were hiding. He retrieves a box and runs to an alleyway to check it's contents. Finding nothing but sunglasses he takes a pair and hides the rest away in a trash can.
Sticking them on the world turns black and white, a second time Nada actually starts looking around seeing where billboards are there's hiding messages in them like OBEY, CONSUME etc. Not only that he notices that some normal looking humans are actually gross metallic eyed skinned aliens.
Apparently they were meant to look like decayed humans, like the decay of society. He starts to point things like this out to normal people, they of course think he's bananas.
Some of the aliens cotton on that he can see them though and start to report him, that he 'can see' them which gets him stopped by cops. He kills the cops takes their weapons then strides into a bank where he utters one of the most memorable lines in movie history.
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and to kick ass, and I am all out of gum"
Killing only aliens Nada escapes by taking a channel employee Holly as hostage, at her home he tries to make her believe in the aliens. She thinks he's nuts and ends up pushing him through her patio window to the floor below.
He meets back up with Frank, Frank doesn't turn him in but tells him to get out of there after murdering a bunch of folk. Frank follows Nada to give him a last paycheck to go hide, Nada had recently retrieved the sunglasses that got thrown onto a trash truck. He explains to Frank, who doesn't want to know any of it or have any part. A big fight breaks out between them that you can see the two men still like each other and appreciate each other but each trying to push home their reasoning. He does force them eventually and they both end up joining the resistance.
I'll leave it there as there's still a few twists and turns I don't want to spoil ending either. They Live is another John Carpenter masterpiece whether you appreciate it for the time it was filmed in or that the themes the film has seem to be coming full circle again. THN awards They Live 4 out of 5 stars.
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