John Carpenter is a legend in the horror community. With a career spanning over 50 years, he has given the world the Halloween franchise, The Thing, and The Fog as well as creating incredible music to go alongside his films. To this day, with his 74th birthday just celebrated, Carpenter continues to create new features, expand existing movie mythology, and tour with new music.
While his contributions to the horror genre are undeniable, his prowess in the genres of action and sci-fi should not be overlooked. In fact, it could be argued that one of his best features falls into the latter genre. They Live debuted in 1988 and has since become an iconic piece of film history not only for its storyline and interesting effects and visuals but for its scathing political commentary on capitalism and consumerism.
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper stars in They Live as Nada, a construction worker on the fringes of society. He meets Frank (Keith David), a fellow worker, who takes him to a soup kitchen/homeless encampment to get a bite to eat. Both men pontificate on the state of the world, Frank is bitter and angry at the inequality between the rich and poor and the fight to live, whereas Nada believes in working hard and eventually getting what is due.
In the camp is a television set that periodically gets interrupted by pirate signals warning of the evil overlords that control the human race. During one of the broadcasts, Nada notices a priest mouthing along with the hacker's speech and observes him and the de facto leader of the encampment Gilbert going off into the church across the way. The next day Nada investigates the church, finding "They Live We Sleep" scrawled on the wall and a tape recorder playing a recording of choir practice. Turns out the church is headquarters for the resistance, and they are manufacturing sunglasses that can see through the lies.
The church is promptly raided by a swarm of armed police officers who also bring a bulldozer to destroy the encampment. The brutality and uncaring of the police are lingered on, showcasing their extreme lack of empathy as they bulldoze and beat their way through the people in an extended sequence of violence. The next morning, Nada returns to the church and is confused as to why they were hiding boxes of sunglasses. Confused until he puts on a pair and sees that the world is actually filled with subliminal messaging telling humans to stay asleep, obey and consume.
With the glasses on Nada can see the creatures that have infiltrated the human race, and they are ugly. Skull-faced monsters with bulging eyes peer at him from every corner and soon enough they realize that he can see. What follows is Nada on the run, trying to simultaneously evade and take down our evil overlords. On the way, he ropes in Frank after they have an obligatory tough guy fistfight that lasts for just over 5 minutes (surely a way to capitalize on Piper's wrestling background). Piper utters incredible one-liners throughout, the most famous being "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum." but we can't overlook the equally classic "Brother life's a bitch, and she's back in heat". Piper's character even loosely inspired Duke Nukem with the game including a version of the bubblegum line.
Nada and Frank eventually make their way to the headquarters of the aliens, seeing the true reach of their influence. The human power elite has joined forces with the aliens helping them to expand their hold over the planet. Once there they find an old friend who has joined forces with the aliens and pretend that they have to in order to get a tour of the facility. Of course, they leverage this to find the source of the signal being broadcast that is controlling people. They Live ends on mixed emotions. Nada stops the signal, allowing the humans of the LA surrogate city to see what was hidden. However, in the process both he and Frank die unable to see what the future holds now the secret is out.
They Live was a timely commentary on society when it was released and continues to ring true today. Some would say more so than ever the film highlights the ever-increasing divide between the ruling and the working class as the wealth distribution continues to dictate who thrives. With the increasing access to technology and the pressure to constantly be connected, people are constantly bombarded by advertising from ads in videos and games to never-ending shopping apps and next-day delivery. Now even our homes offer no respite from the grind as the increasing merger of work and life sees people working longer hours for no more pay. When it comes to the legacy of They Live, no remake is needed as it remains just as prescient today in 2022 as it did in1988.